Case adjourned: Prisoners unable to attend hearings

LAHORE:

Thousands of court cases had to be adjourned on Tuesday as district police excused themselves from producing under-trial prisoners for hearings in the courts.

The judicial lock-ups of the courts remained empty as police officials cited their unavailability due to “unavoidable circumstances”.

On Tuesday, court readers called several cases requiring under-trial prisoners to appear before court but none were produced. At around 2pm, the Operations DIG sent the sessions court staff a letter saying that due to unavoidable circumstances and law and order duties in the city, the Lahore district police was unable to produce under-trial prisoners in lower courts on August 19. The letter requested the courts to adjourn the cases. There were also no policemen deputed at the judicial lockups. There were 20 judges dealing with cases of murder, anti-narcotics, rape and other heinous crimes that had to adjourn proceedings. Aslam Mehmood, a litigant from Kasur, said he arrived in court for the hearing only to find out the police were busy elsewhere.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th,2014.