Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah presiding over the meeting regarding implementation of PPO. PHOTO: APP
KARACHI: The federal government has sought the Sindh government’s help to establish special courts to try cases under the Pakistan Protection Ordinance, a new law promulgated to deal with cases of terrorism.
For this, the federal interior ministry has sought details from the Sindh government about the number of courts required, their location, measures to be taken for witnesses’ security as well as the deployment of prosecution officials and judges.
Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah agreed to provide full assistance for the implementation of the ordinance, but clarified that some legal issues needed to be resolved by the federal government through appropriate amendments to the law.
The home department’s additional chief secretary Mumtaz Shah said that criminal activities were being carried out by prisoners through communication devices. “We have prepared a list of notorious criminals involved in the activities and will shift 51 convicted criminals out of the province. Additionally, 500 under-trial prisoners will also be transferred to other districts in Sindh,” he said at a briefing at CM House.
Instal jammers in a month
Meanwhile, the CM directed the prisons IG to ensure the installation of jammers in the Central and Landhi jails in Karachi within a month’s time. Rs88 million have already been released to the jail administration for this purpose.
The CM also constituted a committee, to be headed by home department’s additional chief secretary to approach the Sindh High Court and evolve a mechanism through which the cases pertaining to the ongoing targeted operation would be tried and decided within a week by the anti-terrorism courts.
Finance Secretary Sohail Rajput, Law Secretary Mir Muhammad Shaikh, Sindh Police IG Shahid Baloch, Advocate General Khalid Javaid and Prisons IG Nusrat Manghan attended the meeting.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 8th, 2014.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ