November 01, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 19, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the advocate general of Punjab to collect evidence and initiate action against the Islamabad police officials for failing to do same against their subordinates who brutally beat up lawyers and journalists in the city on September 29.

A bench of the court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, issued the directive during suo motu hearings into the incident.

Islamabad’s deputy commissioner and two top police officials were suspended during the initial hearings for flouting the bench’s order to identify and punish the policemen involved in the ugly incident.

The bench observed that the police excesses that day were intentional as there was no reason for heavy police deployment just to secure the Election Commission building where the violence took place. The chief justice also took exception to the fact that the police and the local administration were concealing the real culprits behind the incident.

It was either the suspended deputy commissioner or the IG who are responsible for ordering the police to manhandle peaceful lawyers and journalists, the bench observed.

Hearing the contempt case against the suspended Isla-mabad officials, the court direced the advocate general

to collect details and frame charges against them.

Law enforcement agencies’ use of force against the lawyers, journalists and rights activists on September 29 had aroused the ire of the Supreme Court for its brutality. Their fault was that they wanted to witness the scrutiny of the nomination papers filed by the presidential candidates in the Election Commission office but police would not allow that.

Over 70 lawyers, journalists and civil society members were injured in the violence that followed.

On October 1, the Supreme Court ordered that Deputy Commissioner Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, Inspector General of Police Moravat Ali Shah and Senior Superintendent of Police Dr Naeem Khan be removed for overlooking the use of force against the lawyers, journalists and social activists.

On September 29 the capital had seen pitched battles on the Constitution Avenue after lawyers were manhandled, baton-charged Šand tear-gassed during a demonstration against President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid.

A number of journalists covering the event were also beaten up by riot police, plainclothesmen and anti-terrorist squad personnel. The baton-charge began minutes after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, one of the proposers of Gen Musharraf as a candidate for the polls, entered the Election Commission building and intensified when he was about to leave the place.