ISLAMABAD: The Punjab police have revealed that a lawyer who went missing from Rawalpindi is in a training camp in Miranshah run by a splinter of Punjabi Taliban allied with Ahmad Farooq’s al-Qaeda group.
The Rawalpindi police chief submitted a four-page report in the Supreme Court regarding Zaheer Ahmed Gondal, who had been ‘missing’ since July 16, 2013. The apex court has taken suo motu notice of his alleged enforced disappearance and sought a report from the Rawalpindi police.
The report says two of the missing person’s brothers —Tanveer Gondal and Zaheer Gondal — have links with terrorist organisations. Tanveer was the alleged mastermind of various attacks in Islamabad and Punjab. Hammad Adil, one of his group’s members involved in FIA prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar’s assassination, during interrogation, revealed that Tanveer and Zaheer were involved in planning a suicide attack on Pervez Musharraf in June 2013, the report further says.
It also states that intelligence agencies’ sources revealed the presence of Zaheer at the training camp.
The Punjab police also asked the authorities in K-P and FATA to assist in tracking down the lawyer in Waziristan, but a positive response is still awaited.
The three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk, decided to delink the case from other cases of enforced disappearance.
The bench asked the police to get statement from the family of the missing lawyer and submit a report on January 13.
Katcheri attack
Meanwhile, the same bench directed the Islamabad administration to submit a report on the police officials found responsible for the F-8 Katcheri attack, and asked the attorney general to file report about the compensation given to people injured in the attack.
The directions came during a suo motu hearing on the gun-and-bomb attack on the District Courts on March 3, 2014, where 12 people including an additional sessions judge were killed.
Deputy Attorney General Sajid Illyas Bhatti informed the court that four cops had been suspended.
The chief justice asked the DAG about the report on responsibility for the attack. Bhatti said the initial report had fixed responsibility on 46 officials, four of whom were constables and one an assistant sub inspector.
Justice Gulzar remarked that the DSP and SP should have been held responsible for the attack, adding that while action had been taken against constables, no action was taken against any officer.
The DAG also said that the government was not considering increasing compensation amounts.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 11th, 2014.
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