July 25, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 28, 1427

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LAHORE, July 24: The Lahore High Court on Monday served notices on the Punjab chief secretary and the IGP directing them to submit a report this week as to what measures they were taking to protect the life and property of citizens.

The court also sent to them for para-wise comment copies of a writ petition through which advocate M.D Tahir had stated that the provincial government had exposed citizens to dacoities, waylaying and a variety of other street crimes and thus failed in its constitutional duty to ensure security of the people in cities and rural areas.

The petitioner-lawyer requested the court to fix responsibility on executive officers and political high-ups who, he stated, had failed in restoring law and order as envisaged under articles 9, 10, 14, 15, 24 and 25 of the 1973 Constitution which guaranteed basic human rights.

The petition, filed last month, submitted that the city of Lahore alone saw commissioning of about 7,300 dacoities and around 50,000 theft cases in addition to hundreds of incidents of murder and rape in one year.

He also quoted a newspaper report as saying that more than 50 dacoity incidents took place in Lahore only on one day (July 21).

The people of the city, he submitted, were made to live in an atmosphere where they were not safe on the road and even at home.

The people, he submitted, were at a loss to understand if the government had abdicated its role of ensuring law and order and if any law-enforcing agency was working at all to protect them from sheer lawlessness.

He submitted if such was the condition in the provincial capital, what could be the situation in other cities and rural areas.

The lawyer-petitioner requested the court to issue directions to the authorities concerned to meet their constitutional obligation in protecting the life and property of citizens across the province.