Home secretary summoned

CJ unhappy over ‘unsatisfactory’ answers by govt.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court chief justice on Friday directed Home Secretary Shahid Khan to appear in person before the court on January 16 in a suo motu hearing into the firing incident at Rawalpindi district courts in which four people lost their lives. 

Earlier, Liaqat Ali, the Rawalpindi superintendent of police (investigation), appeared before the court along with his colleagues. He informed the court that investigation in the case was underway. The CJ inquired about the status of explosive materials seized from the crime scene. The SP said the police had recovered a 5-inch piece of a plastic pipe and some explosive material. He said police had sent the explosives to the Punjab Forensic Agency and the Chemical Examiner in Lahore to inspect the nature of the substance, but they had said they lacked the facility.

The chief justice expressed his displeasure with a law officer’s failure to say whether or not the Punjab government had such a facility. “It appears that Punjab police and the government can do no better than laying floral wreathes at the graves,” he remarked.

Earlier, the director general of Human Rights and Vigilance Cell of the LHC submitted his report on the killings. It concluded that the major cause of the incident was poor security arrangements at the district courts.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2012.