KARACHI : Lawyers put protest plans on hold : Police cooperation assured
By A Reporter
KARACHI, Sept 15: The legal fraternity on Saturday postponed its proposed sit-in in front of the Sindh chief secretary’s office till Sept 22 on the assurance of police officers that people involved in the killing of Advocate Raja Riaz would be soon apprehended.
A team of police officers, comprising three DSPs, SIO Niaz Khoso and Saddar Town Police Officer Capt Tahir Naveed, held a meeting with the Karachi Bar Association leadership and other senior lawyers in the Committee Room of the City Courts and assured them that the investigation of the murder had been initiated on a priority basis and requested for giving police an opportunity to complete the investigation.
Following the lawyers-police meeting, a general-body meeting of the Karachi Bar Association was held in the Shuhda-i-Punjab Hall to review the situation. KBA President and Sindh Bar Council member Iftikhar Javaid Qazi said conspiracies were being hatched to create a rift in the lawyers’ ranks which, he claimed, were aimed at removing Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry from his post.
He said the entire legal fraternity across the country was anxious about the investigation of Raja Riaz’s killing and stressed the need for expediting the process.
He asked fellow lawyers to maintain unity in their ranks with utmost patience, adding that the anti-judiciary conspiracies must be foiled.
An SBC member, Salahuddin Khan Gandapur, rejected the police assurance about the investigation of the murder case, saying that no good could be expected from the police in the prevailing circumstances.
He said in the existing atmosphere the investigation of the case would bear no positive results and it would also be disposed of like other ordinary murder cases.
“The killing of Raja Riaz is a political murder and its investigation report is difficult to be announced,” he said and added that many key political figures had been assassinated in the past but their actual killer were yet to be named in the cases.
He said everybody knew about the killers, but who would arrest them. He said those using derogatory language against the lawyers could not be considered educated and civilised.
Mr Gandapur said the lawyers were still enjoying the support of civil society, the media and other professionals and they were in a position to continue their struggle for the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.
The KBA general-secretary said the police officers had assured his association that the investigation of Raja Riaz murder case would be completed shortly, adding that a murder case normally required 17 days for investigation, but this case would be processed on a priority basis.
He asked the police officers to interrogate Muttahida Qaumi Movement legislators who had issued press statements in favour of Advocate Khwaja Naveed three days before Raja Riaz’s killing.
Mr Qureshi said those who had been speaking against the establishment and the army in the past had become a part of the establishment now. He said the next line of action would be decided at a general-body meeting of the KBA to be held on Sept 22.
Mushtaq Ahmed Awan and Amjad Iqbal Siddiqui said the proposed sit-in programme was postponed in the best interests of the lawyers’ community and asked the lawyers to wait and see till the next meeting. They stressed that discipline must be maintained in their fold.
Mushtaq said a sit-in in front of the chief secretary’s office was planned to build up pressure for the arrest of the killers, but it was postponed on the assurance of the police officers.
