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QUETTA, Nov 2: Legislators of opposition parties on Wednesday handed over a memorandum to Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani demanding arrest of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) officials for allegedly killing a citizen and wounding three others on Monday.
Leaders and activists of the JUI-F, BNP-Mengal and the ANP assembled in front of the press club and marched towards the Governor’s House to hand over the memorandum related to the Oct 31 incident at Sirki road and the detention of political workers.
Balochistan Minister Maulana Abdul Rahim Bazai, MNA Maulana Noor Mohammad, Senator Kamran Murtaza of the JUI-F, Sajid Tareen and Malik Wali Kakar of the BNP-M, Shakoor Kakar, Aminullah and Rashid Nasar of the ANP were among the 15 representatives of opposition parties who were allowed access to the main gate of the Governor’s House by police.
An army captain came to the gate and asked the leaders to hand over the memorandum, but Maulana Noor Mohammad refused and said that the governor himself should receive the letter. Later a major approached the protesters and said that only three of them could go inside to meet the governor.
Provincial minister Maulana Bazai, Maulana Noor Mohammad and Kamran Murtaza met the governor and handed over the memorandum.
Maulana Noor later told newsmen that the governor had assured them that he would order an investigation into the Sirki road incident. He also asked them to provide him a list of political activists who were allegedly kept in custody by the intelligence agency.
The MNA said that the opposition parties had held a meeting at the MPA hostel on Tuesday to prepare the memorandum in which they demanded arrest of an army major and officials of the ISI allegedly involved in the firing in which one person died and three others suffered injuries, and their trial in a court of law.
He said that the release of about 200 political activists, who were arrested by intelligence agencies, was also demanded or else they should be produced before a court to prove charges against them.
The memorandum further said that the government should direct intelligence agencies to give up arresting political activists without fulfilling legal requirements.
PRISONER’S APPEAL: A division bench of the Balochistan High Court has accepted the appeal of a convicted prisoner in a corruption reference and said he was entitled to earn remissions in jail prior to the amendment to the ordinance of the NAB.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Amanullah Khan Yasinzai and Justice Kelash Nath Kohli accepted the plea of Abdul Sattar Lasi seeking the remissions granted by the government on different occasions to prisoners.
The amendment to the NAB ordinance deprived convicted prisoners in corruption references to avail themselves of remissions in sentences given by the accountability court.
The appellant had challenged the jail authority’s version of denying him the 622-day remission in view of the amendment to the NAB ordinance.
The appellant submitted that he should be granted the remission for a period before the amendment to the ordinance. The court upheld the submission.
