KARACHI: While rejecting the police report on the city’s law and order, the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday called for a comprehensive and detailed report on targeted operations against criminals and subsequent prosecution of the suspects arrested during the operations.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani was seized with the proceedings of the Karachi order implementation case. The other bench members were Justices Azmat Saeed and Mushir Alam.
The judges expressed their dissatisfaction over the police report submitted by Additional IG (Legal) Ali Sher Jakharani at the outset of the hearing.
The police department legal officer sought time to submit a detailed report when the court asked him how many of the arrested accused persons were charge-sheeted. The court granted him 10 days. The report submitted by the police said over 14,000 suspects were charge-sheeted since the inception of the targeted operation.
It said that 411 accused in murder cases, 137 in targeted killing, 173 in extortion, 105 in kidnapping for ransom, 620 in robbery, 612 in street crime, 4,935 in illegal arms and 6,639 in different crimes were among the charge-sheeted accused persons.
Related: Commission to determine legality of Karachi operation: SHC
Mr Jakharani told the judges that a total of 939 cases were filed in anti-terrorism courts during the ongoing targeted operation. Of them, he said, 70 cases were decided and accused involved in such cases were convicted.
Shrine security
As for the application seeking security arrangements at the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, he submitted that security arrangements at the shrine had been beefed up and there was no complaint whatsoever in this regard. The bench disposed of the application as having been fructified after the police officer’s statement.
Land allotment case
Advocate General Abdul Fatah Malik submitted that the order of the apex court regarding stay on allotments, mutations, transfer and conversion of any state land was being complied with in letter and spirit.
However, the bench clarified that the order staying the allotment / grant of long leases was meant to ensure that the land was neither leased out nor allotted for reasons other than bona fide and to land grabbers and “this would not prevent the competent authority in the federal or Sindh government to allot or lease out land for a project approved by the concerned authority that is directed towards establishment of any industry or automotive plant or power generating plant or any other initiative in public interest and in accordance with law and the relevant rules”. The bench directed the advocate general to convey this order to the chief secretary and all the provincial secretaries to ensure that the earlier order was not misconstrued and no such project was held up on that account.
The bench also called for a detailed report from a senior member of the Board of Revenue on actions taken by the anti-encroachment force against encroachment and the state land recovered by it.
The bench perused a report submitted by the BoR regarding the total land (2,864 acres, 16.2 ghuntas and 2500 square yards) retrieved from encroachers.
However, the court observed that the report was silent as to what was the total acreage of the encroached land in the province.
When confronted with this by the court, BoR member Malik Israr Hussain conceded that the report was deficient in this respect.
Forest land occupation
The bench directed the BoR to apprise it of the factual status of about 1,500 acres of forest land located in Qasimabad, Hyderabad, which was claimed to have been re-occupied.
The bench was seized with the application of civil rights campaigner Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi, who informed the court that forest land measuring 1,446.46 acres in union council 4 of Qasimabad, Hyderabad was vacated on the orders of the apex court, but the land had been encroached upon again by the influential persons.
SSP Rao Anwar case
The issue regarding the posting of SSO Rao Anwar could not be taken up as counsel for him Advocate Abid Zubairi did not appear in court.
The hearing was adjourned till Tuesday.
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2014