SC told: Weak prosecution led to acquittal of outlaws

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The Supreme Court of Pakistan was told on Wednesday that weak prosecution helped high-profile outlaws acquit in serious crime cases as lack of protection often forced witnesses to retract their statements.

Heading a five-member bench of the SC comprising, Justice Sarmard Jalal Osmani, Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali resumed the hearing on the implementation of apex court’s verdicts regarding suo motu case of Karachi unrest.

DG Rangers, Rizwan Akhtar, Chief Secretary Sindh, Raja Muhammad Abbas, Additional Chief Secretary Home, Wasim Ahmed, IG Sindh Police, Fayaz Khan Laghari, Advocate General Sindh, Abdul Fatah Malik, DG Nadra, Javed Iqbal and a representative of Election Commission were present in the court.

The court suddenly asked all the SHOs present there to leave the hall and join their duties at police stations to protect the human life.

The judges said police’s primary responsibility was to serve the public.

Justice Amir Hani Muslim asked the Advocate General Sindh why the surveys of government lands had not so far been carried out. He said if the surveys of official lands had been done, half of the problems in this connection would have been solved.

DG Nadra told the court that before computerising licences of weapons, the authority used to send them to verification to Sindh Home Department. Wasim Ahmed tried to inform the court that the government through Nadra was computerising weapons’ licences. He said after computerisation process, Nadra would have all the record of weapons with it. To which, Justice Jamali asked the additional chief secretary home about the fate of those weapons which had fallen into the hands of outlaws.

Wasim Ahmed said that the government had issued 2 million licences of fire arms in the province, including 1 million in Karachi. He said that out of 2 million licences, only 6,000 had so far been computerised. He said the rest would soon be made part of the database. The court proposed to the government to computerise licences of weapons by setting up more machines in the city. Wasim Ahmed told the bench that the government would install machines in other eight districts of the province by Dec 31, this year.

Justice Jamali asked Wasim Ahmed to complete the verification of licenses, which had been issued to people who died within 3 to 6 months. He said if the government completes verification of such licenses, then half the job seemed to have been done. Additional Chief Secretary told the court that after the passage of 18th Constitutional Amendment, the Sindh government was introducing Arms Act to issue licences of weapons. To which, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain asked him what was the government waiting for since the passage of the amendment 13 months ago.

Replying to a court’s question, Rizwan Akhtar said Rangers was free from all types of pressures, as it had so far arrested 16 outlaws. He said Rangers operated independently with different force deployment in mornings and evenings.

The court observed that there was not a single industrialist in the city, who had not paid extortion. It said the city witnessed more strikes against extortionism. It said previously it was a circle in the city but now groups had allocated different parts to one another to collect the extortion.

DG Rangers told the court that high-profile criminals were acquitted on the basis of weak prosecution. To which, the court asked him to identify big outlaws. The DG Rangers cited the name of Ajmal Pahari as an example. Prosecutor General Sindh, Shahadat Awan, told the court that Ajmal Pahari was booked in 17 different cases. He said the accused got bail in all cases, as wittiness retracted their statements. He said the accused had, however, been arrested under MPO.  To which, Justice Sarmard Jalal Osmani asked about the programme the government had to evolve to protect witnesses. The court was also told that about 1900 people had been killed in the city this year alone. The number of those killed in the city was 1926 last year.

The court adjourned hearing of the case till Thursday.