Full circle : SHC issues notices in petition seeking end to killings, no-go areas

Officials put on notice for February 15.

KARACHI: A division bench of the Sindh High Court comprising Justice Maqbool Baqar and Justice Nisar M Shaikh ordered on Monday for notices to be issued to the state for February 15 over the unabated targeted killings and existence of no-go areas in Karachi despite orders of the Supreme Court.

Syed Muhammad Iqbal Kazmi, a self-styled social activist known for filing such petitions, went to the high court some time back with a request for it to reopen his two constitutional petitions. As the application was disposed of by the high court, he went to the Supreme Court, which had on January 24 referred the matter back to the Sindh High Court.

Kazmi’s petitions were disposed of after the Additional Advocate General of Sindh told the SHC that these matters had already been decided by the Supreme Court in its suo motu proceedings into Karachi’s law and order breakdown.

The apex court had ordered the Sindh government to control the targeted killings and end no-go areas. When the killings continued, Kazmi filed a contempt of court application as the SC’s orders were not being followed. The SC told him to go back to the SHC whose chief justice is heading a committee to monitor how the government implements the SC’s orders.

Kazmi has said that there has been no let-up in the killings in Karachi. In the last four months of 2011, 420 people were targeted. Kazmi also argues that no-go areas persist and are even off limits to the police.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2012.