‘If we can’t enter, nobody else will either’

Lawyers put a padlock on the main gate of judicial lockup.

LAHORE:

A group of lawyers locked the judicial lockup at the sessions court on Saturday for about an hour. The lawyers said they had done so after police officials did not allow them to enter the lockup. Police cited security concerns as the reason for not letting lawyers through.

The lockup was reopened after the matter was taken to a judge.

Five lawyers, including Advocate Syed Nadeem Hussain Shah, put a padlock on the main gate of the judicial lockup when they were barred by the police from entering the lockup. Advocate Shah said he had wanted to meet a prisoner so he could plead his case.

When he asked why they were not being allowed through, he told The Express Tribune, the officials told him that “higher ups” had banned the entry of every one, including lawyers, in the lockup.

Shah says he then asked them to produce a copy of the notification to the effect but was told to ‘talk to the SP (Headquarters)’.

The advocate called up the police officer and was told that he would receive a copy of the notification in “10 minutes”.

The lawyers, said Shah, waited for half an hour and then locked the judicial lockup, saying that “no one would be allowed to enter” if they couldn’t.

A prisoner van had to wait outside the judicial lockup and a number of vans inside the lockup were unable to leave the premises.

Later some police officials, including DSP (Judicial) Qazi Shaheen, Islampura DSP Khalid Mehmood Khan and Islampura SHO, reached the scene and approached District and Sessions Judge Nazir Ahmed Ganjana. Gajana referred the matter to Additional District and Sessions Judge Akmal Khan, who called the lawyers.

Advocate Shah told the judge that if café workers and ‘those beloved of the police’ could enter the judicial lockup, the lawyers, too, should be allowed. The judge directed that only lawyers, who could produce a bar council card, would be allowed to enter.

Talking to The Express Tribune Advocate Shah said that he had locked the judicial lock up as he was not allowed to meet with a prisoner. He said a woman had told him that his son Saghir Masih was in jail but she did not know in which court he appeared. He said that he wanted to meet with Masih so that he could plead his case.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2013.