A photo of the Rawalpindi clashes during Ashura. PHOTO: AFP
An anti-terrorism court on Thursday sent 19 suspects of the Ashura violence on physical remand.
They were produced before the special judge Rana Masood Akhtar amid strict security.
The court adjourned the case till January 11 and asked the police to produce them on the next hearing.
The police also produced 34 other persons accused of involvement in the same incident who were already on physical remand. The police have filed an application urging the court to extend the physical remand of the 34 persons.
Muhammad Ilyas Siddiqui, a lawyer representing the suspects, however, argued before the court that the police have failed to produce any evidence against them even after two weeks of physical remand.
The suspects were arrested from different localities of the city during raids after they were identified with the help of the video footage and CCTV cameras installed at the site of the violence.
The suspects were brought to the court in two heavily guarded prison vans. Family members and relatives of the arrested persons reached the court but police did not allow them to meet them.
At least 13 persons were killed when a mob attacked a seminary Taleemul Quran in Raja Bazaar on November 15 last year.
Soon after the incident, the government had constituted three bodies including a fact-finding committee, a joint investigation team headed by additional inspector-general of police Aftab Cheema and a judicial commission headed by Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench Judge Mamoon Rasheed Sheikh to investigate the matter and present their reports.
The government had promised that the committee’s findings will be made public but it yet has to fulfil its promise. The investigation of judicial commission is still under way.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 3rd, 2014.
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