Target killings: ‘What about the lawyers killed, Mr IG?’

Supreme Court asks IG to follow up on leads in lawyer Murtaza Chinoy’s murder.

KARACHI:

The Supreme Court full bench, which is hearing a suo motu case regarding violence in Karachi at the Supreme Court Karachi registry, has asked the IG Sindh to follow up on the murders of lawyers.

“What about lawyers killed, Mr IG?” asked Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, a member of the full bench. “What investigations have been made?”

He referred to the case of Mohammed Murtaza Chinoy’s murder. The 35-year-old lawyer was shot dead on Zamzama on August 25. At least 10 lawyers have been killed in Sindh this year.

“Have you interrogated the owner of the plot who purchased the disputed plot from the original owner?”

The bench has asked the Sindh IG Wajid Ali Durrani to at least interrogate the person, since no action has been taken in the past few days.

Anwar Mansoor Khan, president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) had been summoned by the court and said that police going back and forth but was only investigating family members.

“We are tracking the telephone call data,” said Durrani, who was then told by the bench that the killers of the slain lawyer are known and it is up to the police to apprehend them.

After the court hearing, Anwar Khan said that Chinoy had filed a petition regarding the conversion of a protected heritage site, which was located on a plot adjacent to his office.

The authorities have allowed a 10-storey building to be built there.

The court issued a stay order and this was a major dispute that Chinoy was involved in.

According to Khan, the plot was sold by the original owner who is still contesting the case but the buyer had not come forward.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2011.