Judicial Complex bombing: Security intensified near courts in Hazara

Bar council presidents meet police chiefs to discuss safety measures.

ABBOTABAD: Security at courts across Hazara division has been tightened after the Peshawar Judicial Complex suicide attack.

Presidents of Hazara division’s bar councils held a meeting with the district police chiefs on Wednesday and reviewed the steps taken for the protection of visitors in courts. Police and elite force personnel were deployed around all district courts including the building of divisional bench of the Peshawar High Court in Abbottabad.

Four people were killed and more than 45 were injured in an attack on the Judicial Complex in Peshawar on Monday. Two suicide bombers forcefully entered the court premises. One threw a grenade in the courtroom of Additional Sessions Judge Kulsoom Azam before blowing himself up. The second bomber was shot dead by security forces and his jacket was defused.

Following the incident, lawyers expressed their concerns over security measures for the protection of judges, lawyers, clerical staff and litigants in court premises and said security needs to be tightened to avoid such incidents.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2013.