KARACHI: Karsaz tribunal summons Naheed Khan on 11th
By Azfar-ul-Ashfaque
KARACHI, March 3: The Karsaz inquiry tribunal on Monday re-issued a summons against Pakistan People’s Party leader and political secretary to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Naheed Khan, and directed her to appear before the tribunal on March 11 to record her statement.
The tribunal chief, retired Justice Dr Ghous Mohammad, was told that a previously issued notice could not be served on Ms Khan as she had not been at her apartment for the past two to three months.
The process server submitted before the tribunal that he had visited Ms Khan’s apartment in the Boat Basin police jurisdiction to serve the notice on her but he was informed that Ms Khan was in Islamabad.
The tribunal ordered registrar Zahoor Ahmed Hakro to repeat the process for Ms Khan. It also directed the police to find out her address in Islamabad to serve the summons on her. Besides, the tribunal also ordered that the notice be affixed outside her apartment in Karachi if she was not there.
Retired Justice Dr Ghous adjourned the hearing till March 5 for recording the evidence of PPP leader Agha Siraj Durrani and retired Major SSP Imtiaz, who had been nominated as Ms Bhutto’s chief security officer by the federal government.
The tribunal was investigating the midnight carnage caused by twin suicide blasts on Ms Bhutto’s homecoming procession near Karsaz on Oct 18 which left over 140 dead and some 500 injured.
The Sindh government constituted the tribunal on Oct 31 to probe and ascertain the circumstances and causes leading to the twin blasts at the PPP rally. The tribunal was also assigned to examine the security arrangements made by the administration and organisers; to find out negligence and lapse on part of law enforcing agencies as well as organisers of the rally; to fix the responsibility against the persons/groups involvement in the incident and to suggest effective measures to be taken with a view to avoid recurrence of such incident in future.
