The Peshawar High Court (PHC) taking a suo motu notice of police violence against lawyers on the Presidential Election day on Tuesday directed CCPO Peshawar to submit his written statement in the court about the incident before next hearing of the case on October 18.
Two-member bench of Peshawar High Court (PHC) comprising Chief Justice Tariq Parvez Khan and Justice Salim Khan had also directed the bureau offices of Dawn News television and Aaj TV for producing video clips of the police violence in the court so it could be seen that the CCPO statement about police innocence in the violence was based on truth or not.
The bench also directed lawyers to submit their complaints against police through an affidavit before next hearing of the case. On October 6, Chief Justice Tariq Pervez took a suo motu notice of police action against lawyers and summoned top police officials including CCP Abdul Majeed Marwat, SP Cant Mohammad Ejaz and DSP Cant Abdul Ghaffar Qaisrani and fixed October 9 for hearing of the case.
On presidential election day the police armoured personnel carrier (APC) ran over on the protesting lawyers and seriously injured many of them that included president Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA) Abdul Latif Afridi, General Secretary Ishtiaq Ibrahim and two other lawyers Naveed Akhtar and Naik Nawaz while trying to besiege the NWFP Assembly against Presidential Election and stop the pro-Musharraf MPAs from casting votes. The police then baton charged the lawyers and tear-gassed them when the charged lawyers pelted stones on the NWFP Assembly. The driver of police armoured personnel carrier ran over the lawyers when they were busy in burning an effigy of President Musharraf in front of the NWFP Assembly and trying to hostage the assembly to block the way of pro Musharraf members of NWFP assembly from casting of votes.
In reaction, the lawyers burnt the police armoured personnel carrier. On Tuesday when the bench took up suo motu notice, CCP Peshawar Abdul Majeed Marwat informed the court that they had no intention to take action against the lawyers.
He said that ran over of police armoured personnel carrier on lawyers was nothing but a "human error that triggered the clash between lawyers and police. He also said that there was no technical fault in the vehicle but it was an error of the police driver to run over it on the lawyers.