All is not well: SC summons top law, police officials

Police have been giving daily progress reports but violence has been on the rise.

KARACHI: The judges monitoring the law and order situation in Karachi on the chief justice’s orders, have ordered the advocate general of Sindh, inspector general of police and all DIGs to appear in court today, apparently over the question of the authenticity of their daily progress reports.

The two-member monitoring committee of Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany have received a number of daily reports from the police, as stipulated by the five-member full bench of the Supreme Court that took up the issue of violence in Karachi. Nearly 1,000 people were murdered in one of the city’s most violent summers.

The committee has summoned the top law and police officials over a difference between media reports and the reports submitted by the officials, sources said. The notices were issued late in the afternoon on Tuesday, requiring the officers to appear in court at 1:30 pm on Wednesday, today.

Sources privy to the development said that the court was concerned over the increasing incidents of violence in the city and the abduction of the son of a distant relative of the chief justice of the Sindh High Court, Justice Musheer Alam. Three days have passed and he has not been rescued.

The police were giving routine reports, with the message of “all is well”, but the committee apparently took a different view, said a police source. Another senior officer, who assisted the IG during the Supreme Court’s suo motu proceedings, told The Express Tribune that all he knew was that the notice was issued. “I do not know what has transpired since the judgment was reserved in the case.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st,  2011.