Adjournment disappoints families: Next hearing date left unset
Dozens of petitions on missing persons who disappeared over the last two and a half years or so were lined up.
KARACHI:
The police officers waited the whole day. The families hung around hoping to see their loved ones. The lawyers kept coming in and out of the rooms of the Sindh High Court on Tuesday. But in the end, for those who were hoping for good news, there was disappointment and dejection.
Dozens of petitions on missing persons who disappeared over the last two and a half years or so were lined up. More than two dozen of them were fixed before a division bench which took up a case on a dispute over a contract after the midday break. Its proceedings continued till the court’s time was up for the day.
The rest of the board was discharged, which means that no fresh date for the hearing of these cases was given. One of the lawyers, Maqboolur Rahman, who was appearing in most of these petitions, was gunned down a few weeks back. As a result, no one was there to represent the hapless petitioners who are desperate to find their sons, brothers, husbands who they believe are in the illegal detention of the law enforcing agencies.
The petitioners include Beena Khalid, Gulfam Bibi, Fatima, Abdul Rasheed, among others. The case, if it proceeds at this pace, with only 12 judges on the bench, would take years to conclude.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 29th, 2012.
The police officers waited the whole day. The families hung around hoping to see their loved ones. The lawyers kept coming in and out of the rooms of the Sindh High Court on Tuesday. But in the end, for those who were hoping for good news, there was disappointment and dejection.
Dozens of petitions on missing persons who disappeared over the last two and a half years or so were lined up. More than two dozen of them were fixed before a division bench which took up a case on a dispute over a contract after the midday break. Its proceedings continued till the court’s time was up for the day.
The rest of the board was discharged, which means that no fresh date for the hearing of these cases was given. One of the lawyers, Maqboolur Rahman, who was appearing in most of these petitions, was gunned down a few weeks back. As a result, no one was there to represent the hapless petitioners who are desperate to find their sons, brothers, husbands who they believe are in the illegal detention of the law enforcing agencies.
The petitioners include Beena Khalid, Gulfam Bibi, Fatima, Abdul Rasheed, among others. The case, if it proceeds at this pace, with only 12 judges on the bench, would take years to conclude.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 29th, 2012.