Immediate resumption of cellular services ordered

DC, SSP warned of legal action against non-compliance of court orders

HYDERABAD:

The Civil Judge and Judicial Magistrate I, Moro, Madad Ali Khoso, while taking exception to non-compliance with his May 31 order, directed the government to immediately resume the cellular network services.

The services were suspended in Moro taluka after May 20 clash between the police and the nationalist workers in Noushehero Feroze district, which claimed lives of two young men.

"The respondents (government) are directed to remove public nuisance and immediately restore all mobile networks," the order reads. The authorities had suspended mobile networks in Moro; surrounded Bijarani-Laghari village whose two residents were killed in the clash and also recently enforced section 144 to ban gatherings of people in Moro.

The measures were taken to prevent people from organising protests or road blockades, according to the officials. The judge warned the deputy commissioner, SSP and other officers in the district that disobedience will entail legal action against them.

The order has been given in a petition filed by five residents of Moro including Qadir Bux Korai, Pir Andal, Abdul Karim Kalhoro, Majid Hussain Zardari and Jam Shahnawaz Korejo.

The same court had on May 31 passed an identical order even though the SSP in his report had contended that the law and order situation in Moro necessitated suspension of the cellular phone services.

The judge noted that around a million people in Moro taluka and its surrounding areas and villages suffered due to the suspension of the service. Students, people earning from online trades, banks and other businesses were also immensely suffering. "The respondents haven't brought any substantial proof regarding the law and order situation," the judge observed.

On May 20 the nationalist workers tried to block the national highway by staging a sit-in protest against construction of six new canals on the Indus River and the corporate farming.

The police, however, tried to prevent the blockage of the highway. The authorities alleged that the workers in reaction attacked the house of Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar in protest and set it partially on fire.

The protesters alleged that the police opened fire on them killing Zahid Laghari and Irfan Ali Laghari, who died in a hospital in Hyderabad after fighting for life for four days.