Lawyers remember the May 12 carnage

Demand to reopen the case and bring perpetrators to justice

KARACHI: The legal fraternity observed a complete boycott of legal proceedings on Tuesday to mark the eighth anniversary of the May 12, 2007, mayhem in Karachi. They also staged a symbolic sit-in at the MA Jinnah Road as a form of protest, suspending the flow of traffic on the main arteries of the city.

The lawyers were protesting the deaths of 45 people, including lawyers and political activists, who were killed in armed riots across the city on this day in 2007.

Wearing black armbands, they hoisted a black flag at the office of the Sindh High Court Bar Association. A general body meeting was held to pay tribute to the martyred lawyers and condemn the state's failure in bringing the perpetrators to book despite the passage of eight years.

"This general body demands an inquiry into the incident through all relevant agencies, including the Rangers, so that the culprits are identified and responsibility is fixed as to who masterminded this carnage," the lawyers stated in a unanimously adopted resolution.

The Karachi Bar Association (KBA) also organised a demonstration to protest the May 12, 2007, carnage.

"Eight years on, the authorities are still unable to arrest the culprits," said KBA president Naeem Qureshi, while speaking to the legal fraternity on MA Jinnah Road. "We demand the Chief Justice of Pakistan to constitute a larger bench to investigate the case."

Meanwhile, various political parties condemned the tragic carnage of May 12 and criticised the authorities for failing to unveil the perpetrators at an All Parties Conference convened by the Karachi chapter of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). Leaders of political and religious parties, including the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and the Pakistan Muslim League — Nawaz, attended the conference.

Speaking on the occasion, JI's Liaquat Baloch remembered how the entire city was held hostage on the fateful day.

The Awami National Party also held a meeting in Railways Colony, off II Chundrigarh Road, to condemn the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2015.