Planner for the poor: Perween Rahman murder petition hearing expected today

OPP director was gunned down in March 2013, land mafias suspected.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court is expected to start hearing today [Thursday] a petition filed against the murder of Perween Rahman, a well-loved architect who spent three decades of her life helping low-income neighbourhoods in Karachi.

Leading the three-judge bench, Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani will hear the petition regarding the arrest of the accused in Rahman’s murder case filed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) and other members of civil society groups.

Rahman, the director of the world famous Orangi Pilot Project, was shot dead on March 13, 2013 at Qasba Morr on her way back from work. The HRCP and several other groups and organisations filed a petition in the Supreme Court under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution, making the Sindh and federal governments and the provincial police as respondents. The petition, which was admitted for hearing in September, asks that Rahman’s murder should be investigated by a commission headed by a judge.



Public pressure also built and over 8,000 people all over the world, including professionals working for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and UN agencies, signed the petition.”She was the voice of the marginalised community which had been under threat of eviction. The society not only lost a brave social worker and activist, but also a teacher who nurtured many minds. It is an immense loss and people across the globe have condemned this brutal act,” said the petitioners.

The lawyer, Kamran Sheikh, had maintained that Rahman’s murderers were being sheltered by a Karachi-based political party and were still at large. The petitioners maintain that after the police case or FIR was registered, the investigation was not fair, impartial and satisfactory, as it has been done in a flimsy and hasty manner.

The petition contended that under Article 9 of the Constitution, the state is responsible for providing protection and safety to the life and liberty of all citizens, but the state not only failed to provide security to the deceased but has also failed to conduct a fair and impartial investigation. The petition stressed that the intervention of the court is essential for the purposes of ensuring a fair investigation and trial which would restore the confidence of citizens in the writ of the state.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2014.