May 30, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 2, 1427

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LARKANA, May 29: Justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid has expressed concern over holding ‘jirgas’ despite clear verdicts against the practice by Supreme Court and Sindh High Court, circuit bench, Sukkur.

Speaking at a ‘dialogue’ organised by Pirbhat Women’s Development Society on Sunday, he said that the Supreme Court had given three verdicts against jirga system and Justice Rehmat Hussain Jafferi had banned it in 2004.

He said that the country had laws and rules addressing almost all issues but the need was to implement them. Due to delay in proceedings, people were getting sick of judicial system, he regretted.

Mr Nasir said the government which was bound to dispense justice under article seven of the constitution had failed to deliver.

Nine years had passed since Mir Murtaza Bhutto’s case was filed but what happened to it, he asked. He said that 20,000 prisoners had been stuffed in 17 jails in Karachi which had a capacity of 10,000 only.

He supported initiating dialogues with religious scholars and landlords and said the city direly needed a ‘shelter house’ for women victims of violence. He offered his assistance in setting up such a house.

Advocate Shabir Shar, a rights activist, Naseer Lodhi and Ms Zarqa Ambar Lashari said that the NGOs should lodge complaints against violence against women with all the authorities right from the SHO to the higher courts.