Airport siege: CJ orders report into cold storage deaths

CJ gives interior secretary, CAA chairman 2 weeks to submit report on cold storage facility deaths at Karachi airport.

KARACHI:

Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani has given the interior secretary and the Civil Aviation Authority chairman two weeks to submit a report on seven deaths in a cold storage facility on the premises of Karachi airport earlier this month.

The CJ took suo motu notice of an application filed by the apex court’s Human Rights Cell. The application -- filed by Advocate Nadeem A Shaikh and others – pointed out that seven people had died on June 8 after a fire broke out inside a foreign goods company’s cold storage during the attack on the airport.

The petition stated that many days had passed since the incident but no legal, moral and financial assistance was provided by the government or any other organisation to the families of the deceased.

The applicants pleaded to the apex court to order action against the authorities, directing them to provide compensation to the victims’ families. The chief justice ordered that a report be filed within two weeks.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2014.