Friday 15 March 2013

SC rejects Punjab Police report on Badami Bagh attack

ISLAMABAD: While rejecting the Punjab Police report on the Badami Bagh attack, the Supreme Court has declared it complete failure of the police, saying it could not find out the root cause of the incident.

The court has directed the Punjab government through its advocate general to file comments in the case on Wednesday (tomorrow) so that it could pass an appropriate order against all the police officers, including Punjab acting inspector general, because they are equally responsible for the incident. It also asked the provincial government why Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman’s report on the Gojra incident was not made public and why had the government not implemented the recommendations in it.

The court asked why had the government constituted commissions on different matters if it was not interested in making their findings public. It also questioned why was the Christian colony evacuated by the police before the incident and why were measures not taken to protect the Christian community if there were fears of an attack. The court observed that prima facie it appears that this was a land dispute because of which houses in the locality were evacuated.





A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, on Monday observed that everyone had done politics on the miseries of the poor victims. “You people are unaware how much the country is defamed internationally due to this incident,” the chief justice told the acting Punjab IGP. Meanwhile, Justice Azmat Saeed said that the Punjab Police becomes inactive whenever minorities are attacked in the province.

The bench asked several questions during the hearing to ascertain the root cause of the incident, in which 178 houses were burnt, but the Punjab Police failed to satisfy the court. The chief justice observed that the sanctity of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was supreme, but law would take its course in this case. He said that when an FIR had already been registered against the blasphemy accused then why were the houses of innocent people burnt.

The court also asked the acting IGP Khan Baig whether the police had inquired the area’s MPA regarding the real cause of the incident. The chief justice said that the IGP should leave his post if he is not aware of the developments. The hearing of the case has been adjourned till Wednesday (tomorrow).

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