While holding provincial and city police chiefs responsible for unlawfully cordoning off the Sindh High Court on the occasion of Dr Zulifqar Mirza's presence in court, SHC's division bench on Tuesday hinted at framing contempt charges against them in the next hearing.
A division bench headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah rejected the statements submitted by IG Sindh Ghulam Haider Jamali, Additional IG Ghulam Qadir Thebo and other senior police officers, directing them to file affidavits in support of their claims and give the names of police officers who participated in such operation after watching the CCTV footage.
At the outset of the hearing, Farooq H Naik, who represented the police officers, told the judges that following the court's order action has been initiated against those responsible for the unlawful action. He added the Special Security Unit's SP Major Saleem (Retd) and his 15 commandos and Preedy police station's Acting SHO were put under suspension. A committee had been constituted to investigate the matter.
During proceedings, IG Sindh tried to chip in with unconditional apology for the whole episode. Justice Sajjad rejected his apology saying he would have to explain in the witness box later on. The judges recalled that on the day of incident on the directions of the court efforts were made to contact Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Inspector General of Police and DIG South, but none of them was available, even one of the officers of this court was directed to procure the attendance of the in-charge of the police who had cordoned off this Court but none appeared before the court.
During previous hearing the judges observed that the behaviour of police officers leads us to believe that the entire operation was conducted under the command of Inspector General of Police, as well as Additional IG Police Karachi, DIG and SSP South.
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