The police were responsible as the Rangers were under their command: ex-DAG

KARACHI:

The question you have asked since May 12, 2007 is why Karachi’s law-enforcement didn’t kick in on a day when 46 people were shot dead on its streets.

As with all things Karachi, the answers are not always clear. But some sense of clarity is provided by Rizwan Ahmed Siddiqui, who was one of the province’s top legal officers at the time, the deputy attorney general.

Islamabad has taken the position that it intended to give full protection to the suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, he told The Express Tribune. As the Rangers were under the control of the police at the time, the responsibility lay with the Sindh police. They should have used the Rangers’ force which was at their disposal, he said.

He went over the defense provided by the federal government. A full bench had asked why the army was not called in.

Siddiqui had told the judges that this could only happen according to a certain procedure and it was not possible to undertake that exercise on that day.

The provincial administration and police were responsible for controlling the May 12 mayhem, he emphasised.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2012.