People who came to the City Courts on Wednesday were disappointed to see the lawyers on strike as none of their cases could be taken up. PHOTO: ONLINE
The fire killed two lawyers who were locked inside their chambers on MA Jinnah Road.
Altaf Abbasi and Sheharyar Sheri were burnt to death along with six people, including two women, when some miscreants set fire to their chambers on April 9, 2008.
To mark the sixth anniversary of the tragedy, a partial strike was observed at the Sindh High Court.
"After the passage of six years, neither have the killers been arrested nor have the bereaved families of our deceased colleagues been compensated by the government," pointed out the SHCBA president Z K Jatoi.
The then-government had constituted a judicial tribunal, headed by SHC judge Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, but it failed to identify the culprits. The tribunal observed that the incident may have taken place in reaction to the manhandling of the then-federal law minister, Dr Sher Afghan Niazi, by the lawyers in Lahore. Jatoi demanded the government bring the killers to book and prosecute in addition to extending financial aid to the victims' families at the earliest. "We condemn the delay in the payment of compensation despite promises by the chief minister."
Meanwhile, lawyers at the City Courts and Malir District Courts also boycotted the legal proceedings to protest the 2008 attack.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2014.
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