May 25, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 19, 1429

KARACHI, May 24: The legal fraternity on Saturday boycotted court proceedings at the City Courts to protest against the killing of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (Sindh) leader, Tariq Khan.

A number of undertrial prisoners who were brought to the City Courts from various city prisons were returned as hearings in their cases could not be held due to the lawyers’ strike.

The vice-president of the Karachi Bar Association, Mushtaq Jahangiri, told Dawn that the city’s legal fraternity observed a complete strike in protest against the targeted killing of Tariq Khan on Friday and against Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar’s visit to Sindh.

Condemning the killing of the PML-N’s provincial leader, a member of the KBA managing committee, Riaz Afridi, said that Tariq Khan’s murder was an attempt to warn those elements who were actively participating in the ongoing movement for the restoration of the pre-Nov 2 judiciary.

He urged the relevant authorities to arrest the culprits involved in the murder of the PML-N leader.

Indictment deferred

The district and sessions judge, South, Arjun Ram K. Talreja, deferred till May 31 the indictment of two suspects in the murder case of the renowned artist Ismail Gulgee, his wife and a maidservant due to the lawyers’ strike.

Gulgee, his wife, Zareen Gulgee, and their maid, Asiya, were strangled to death by unidentified men in their house situated in the limits of the Boat Basin police station on December 19, 2007. Their three-day-old bodies were found from their house while the driver and a servant had gone missing along with a car belonging to the deceased.

The police registered a case (FIR No 490/07) at the Boat Basin police station under Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Later, the accused, Akram Ali, Gulgee’s driver, and his associate, Anwar, were arrested on February 16, by the AVCU from a hotel near the Cantt Railway Station and were sent to jail.

Fines imposed

The special judge of the federal anti-corruption and emigration, Central, Shaukat Ali Memon, imposed a fine of Rs5,000 each on 13 accused after finding them guilty of travelling to Muscat using illegal means.

In case of non-payment of the fine they would have to undergo one-month imprisonment. The accused were deported from Muscat in December 2007.

The same court granted bail to 11 accused, recently deported from Malaysia against surety bonds of Rs50,000 each.

The FIA anti-human trafficking circle had detained the deportees upon their arrival at the Karachi airport and had registered cases under Section 17 (1) of the Emigration Ordinance.