KARACHI: The chief justice rejected a report submitted on law and order of the city by the Police IG calling it ‘baseless’ and expressed his dissatisfaction on the performance of the department.
The Supreme Court’s five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, heard the Karachi law and order suo moto case for the second day on Tuesday.
The report submitted by the police claimed that there were 159 target killings in the city of which 89 cases were registered. There were 39 accused target killers arrested of which 15 were killed in shoot outs.
The Chief Justice asked Police IG Ghullam Haider Jamali for a list of prisoners released on parole since 2012.
He asked the Director Parole, how life sentence convicts of a kidnapping case Junaid and Farooq were released on parole, when their sentence was to end in 2027 and 2025.
The CJ aksed the Chief Secretary for a report on Rangers‘ powers so that he could review a decision on the extension of their powers.
Rangers demand more powers
On Monday, the Rangers’ counsel Shahid Anwar Bajwa submitted that investigation by the police was ‘whimsical and influenced’. He alleged that more than 1,100 accused hadbeen let off because of defective investigations and many of these released persons are involved in street crimes as well as heinous crimes.
Citing an example of the negligent role of thepolice, he submitted that the main accused of the Safoora Goth killing case, was arrested in the past and released in 2011 because the police could not properly investigate and produce evidence against him although the intelligence report clearly mentioned that he had threatened that he would commit acts having huge consequences and he did so.
The Rangers’ counsel submitted that there was no security of tenure of police officers at police stations, district police and central police offices and there were frequent changes and transfers of police officers. He said not only this but in 2015 three or four home secretaries were changed.
He submitted that the Rangers be allowed to set up their own police station with all necessary powers which were available to the police stations.
On the extension inthe Rangers’ powers under the ATA, he submitted that usually the extension inthe Rangers tenure in the province was made for 60, 90 and 120 days only by the provincial government butsuch acts were creating a bad impact on citizens and an impression that the powers of the Rangers inKarachi under the ATA are temporary and the Rangers were leaving the city after the expiry of such delegated powers.