Bureaucratic red-tape: Court orders Shuhada package for khasadars

Finance secretary summoned for next hearing if fund not paid.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court is unhappy that the government is not giving the families of deceased khasadars the Shuhada package of about three million rupees per individual.

On Wednesday, Justices Yahya Afridi and Musarrat Hilali ordered the federal finance secretary to be summoned at the next hearing if the money is not issued by then.

The bench was informed by Advocate Abdur Rauf Afridi that Abdul Hanan, husband of Gul Zari, and Syed Ihsan Shah, brother of Tariq Khan, were on duty at a check post in Wazir Dand, Khyber Agency. A suicide bomber attacked the check post on February 10, 2010, and killed both khasadar officers. The FATA Secretariat has not issued the Shuhada package to the families of the deceased so far.

The lawyer representing the FATA Secretariat, Iqbal Durrani, told the court that the paperwork in the case has been completed, but they have been waiting on the federal finance division to release the money.

The court then ordered the federal finance secretary to appear at the next hearing on July 24, if he failed to get the work done.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 17^th, 2014.