Lawyer wants FIR registered against interior minister

SC advocate Tariq Asad alleges Rehman Malik guilty until proven innocent.

ISLAMABAD:

Supreme Court advocate Tariq Asad filed a complaint for registration of an FIR against Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Monday following former Sindh minister Zulfiqar Mirza’s allegations implicating him in mass murder and treason.

Asad stated that Mirza accused Malik of conspiring to break up Pakistan and being hand-in-glove with killers in Karachi, besides calling him a congenital liar at a press conference on August 29. Quoting the senior PPP politician in an application registered with the Secretariat police, he said if the country came to harm, Malik would be responsible, because ‘he is the greatest enemy of Pakistan’. Malik offered the US access to the records of National Database and Registration Authority to track terror-mongering, WikiLeaks had revealed. To show his gratitude for US aid, Malik was willing to transfer the record of millions of Pakistanis to its intelligence agencies. “Rehman Malik is therefore a US spy,” Mirza had contended during the two-hour press conference which took the country by storm. He also suggested signing an agreement with the US to give legal cover to the deal and save the PPP government from embarrassment.

Mirza had also accused Malik of releasing 25 target killers on MQM’s payroll and said he was sheltering the party and its leader, Altaf Hussain to protect his own interests, allegations which Asad has mentioned in the application. Malik allegedly tried to free the killers of police commandos in a targeted incident in Karachi. Kamran Madhuri, who was involved in the ambush, had been arrested in an injured condition along with two accomplices. Malik fabricated a case against them to move them to Islamabad on the pretext of conducting an investigation. In reality, he wanted to facilitate their release or escape from the capital, Mirza had alleged.

Tariq Asad had petitioned the Supreme Court on August 21 calling the armed forces to protect the lives of Karachi’s residents. He has contended that Malik should disclose the ‘third force’ responsible for target killings in Karachi and to resign if he could not tackle it like he had claimed. He has made Prime Minister Gilani, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, interior secretary, chief secretary and home secretary Sindh respondents in the petition which was clubbed with the suo motu case taken up by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2011.