Hats off to Pakistani Superior Courts

Code_Red · January 27, 2007, 11:38am

Has anyone noticed that Pakistani High courts and specially Supreme court have become more efficient and more authoratative in the last couple of years ? I specially Like Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudry who is like spearhead. He specially takes Govt Top officials to task often …That includes Pervaiz Musharaf

Police given 90 days to cleanse Punjab of criminals

By Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Friday gave the Punjab Police two-month deadline to eliminate criminal gangs operating in the province, observing that the law and order situation has become a serious concern for all Pakistanis.

The observation came on the day when criminals gunned down Punjab’s additional advocate-general and some police personnel in Lahore. Similarly, on Jan 7, two armed motorcyclists had injured Deputy Inspector-General Police Punjab Tassaduq Hussain in Lahore.

On a suo motu action, the Supreme Court was hearing a complaint of Muhammad Akram Bhatti who had accused Muhammad Aslam Bassa, a wanted thug, for running a gang in Lahore, extorting ‘Jagga’ tax from local shopkeepers. Akram Bhatti along with two other people also lodged a complaint stating that though Muhammad Aslam alias Bassa, head of the Bassa gang, had now been arrested, other gang members were still active and running the network.

The Supreme Court directed Inspector-General of Police Punjab Ahmed Nasim to bust the criminal gangs and their hideouts in the province by March 16 without taking into consideration any political or external pressure.

“In case of any political pressure, the police should let us know and we will direct for facilitating their task without any fear and favour,” the chief justice observed.

Had all the gangs, which are roaming freely, been arrested, the killing of the additional advocate general would have been averted, the chief justice said.
“Criminal gangs are playing with people’s life and property in Punjab and police have allowed them to ravage the society,” the chief justice deplored.
The chief justice also referred to President Pervez Musharraf’s statement in which the latter had also expressed dissatisfaction over the deteriorating law and order situation.

During the hearing, Additional Advocate-General (AAG) Khadim Hussain Qaiser presented a report before the Supreme Court regarding compliance of its directives by the Punjab police.

According to the report, two notorious criminal gangs namely Aslam Bassa and Mubeen Butt have been busted by special police teams while a large amount of weapons have also been recovered from them including kalashnikovs, machine guns and pistols.

Referring to an earlier observation of the apex court that Punjab police had not complied with 90 per cent of its orders, the AAG reasoned that the provincial police had received 182 orders from the Supreme Court in which replies had been filed in 62 cases; six cases had been decided by the court while breakthroughs were expected in 19 cases.

According to him, the police was clueless in 76 cases while 19 cases were pending because of non-receipt of replies from the police stations concerned.
The report, however, could not convince the bench which again directed the IGP to arrest the criminals latest by March 16.

The AAG also submitted before the court a written apology of former IG Punjab Major (retd) Ziaul Hassan on account of his failure for not maintaining decorum of the court at the last hearing on December 21 last year.
The chief justice directed that former IG Punjab Maj (retd) Ziaul Hassan should appear before the court to submit his report.

It is heartening to see that with effective intervention from top judiciary, slowly but surely, things are moving in right direction :k:

Code_Red · January 27, 2007, 11:59am