Attempt on CJ’s life: Lawyers boycott court proceedings against police inaction

Warn of widespread protests if attackers not arrested immediately.

MIRPUR:

Lawyers staged a protest demonstration outside the district courts on Thursday against the failure of the police in nabbing the men who attempted to murder Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court Chief Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal.

Brandishing black bands on their arms, the lawyers boycotted duties and accused the police of being inefficient for failing to arrest the accused even after a lapse of over nine months. They warned of widespread protests across AJK if the attackers are not arrested immediately.

The strike caused inconvenience to litigants who had come from afar, especially from remote areas of the hilly district.

Mirpur District Bar Association (DBA) President Arshad Mallick said that the inordinate delay in arresting the accused has created a sense of insecurity among the legal fraternity, as well as among various segments of the civil society. “It seems as if the case has been shelved deliberately,” he alleged.

He warned that the DBA will take a more aggressive stance on the matter in the near future if the accused are not arrested.

“We will make sure that no innocent person is made a scapegoat by the authorities,” said Mirpur DBA General Secretary Syed Fizaan Haider, and urged the AJK government to take notice of the issue.

The High Court chief justice was shot by unidentified attackers on October 25 last year while he was jogging in the ground of the AJK University campus in Chahaila Bandi, Muzaffarabad. He was shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Muzaffarabad where he underwent a surgery and survived.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10^th, 2012.