March 12, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1429

KARACHI, March 11: The Sindh High Court stayed on Tuesday the proceedings of the tribunal probing the explosions that occurred here near Karsaz on October 18, 2007, at the welcome procession for former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

A division bench comprising Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Syed Mahmood Alam heard Advocate Farooq H. Naek for the petitioner, Sindh PPP chief and nominee for chief minister’s office Qaim Ali Shah, and suspended the tribunal’s proceedings till April 14, the next date of hearing.

Additional Advocate-General Haleema Khan and Assistant Advocate-General Habib Ahmed had no objection to the interim stay order.

The petitioner said the PPP and its chairperson wanted proper investigations into the incident and he had lodged an FIR on their behalf with the Ferozabad police station. The police declined to entertain a second FIR as they had already registered a case on the complaint of their officials. The registration of the PPP’s complaint as the second FIR in the case was ordered by a sessions court but the order was suspended by the high court on the provincial government’s application. The application is pending hearing.

The petitioner said the institution of the probe was a mere eye-wash as the tribunal’s findings had no binding force nor could it convict any person. Above all, the former high court judge who constituted the one-man tribunal (Justice Dr Ghous Mohammad) was biased against the PPP. He had convicted its parliamentarians Pir Mazharul Haq and Munawar Ali Talpur as an accountability judge but the convictions were set aside by the Supreme Court. Nor did his conduct during the inquiry proceedings inspire confidence, the petitioner maintained. (The bias allegation was, however, denied by the provincial home and law departments, which pointed out that the judge had a distinguished judicial career during which he passed several orders in favour of PPP leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari).

Mr Shah said the explosions that killed over 140 people actually targeted the PPP chairperson and were condemned by the UN Security Council. A high-powered probe instead of an inquiry by a judge not trusted by the party should have been launched as demanded by the PPP.

Earlier, the Karsaz inquiry tribunal headed by retired Justice Dr Ghous Mohammad again summoned the political secretary to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Naheed Khan, for March 25.The tribunal was informed by special prosecutor Arshad Lodhi that the notices that had been issued earlier could not be served on Ms Khan as she was not available at her residential addresses in Karachi and Islamabad.

Dr Ghous ordered the tribunal’s registrar to repeat the process for March 25 so that Ms Khan could appear before the tribunal to record her testimony.

The tribunal adjourned its proceedings till March to record the evidence of another witness.

Over 140 persons were killed and nearly 500 wounded in twin blasts on Ms Bhutto’s homecoming procession on Oct 18, 2007. After a lapse of about two weeks, the provincial government constituted a tribunal 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 avoiding recurrence of such an incident in future.