KARACHI, Sept 5: The Supreme Court ordered the Sindh police chief on Monday to take indiscriminate and across-the-board action against criminals to improve the security situation in Karachi.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who heads a five-judge special bench hearing a suo motu case on target killings in the city, also asked Inspector General of Police Wajid Ali Durrani to take in his team competent officers and those who had been removed for political reasons.

“It’s time for you to deliver or you will be held responsible,” he told the IG. “We are supporting you and backing you. Rest assured you are short of time. We can sit here for a long time.”

The CJ said the bench wanted to conclude the case by Friday and asked Mr Durrani to disclose further details of arrested criminals and submit DVDs containing footages of torture cells available at an international video-sharing website.

The IG submitted a progress report and said one of the three suspects arrested had confessed to having killed five people.

He said 421 raids had been carried out in different parts of city, adding that he had assigned a task force to arrest all those who had been named in a joint investigation team’s (JIT) report which had been sent to investigating officers.

Advocate Iftikhar Gillani, former federal law minister and counsel for the Awami National Party, said the army could be deployed under Article 147 of the Constitution to maintain law and order in the city. When the court asked why law-enforcement agencies, including police and Rangers, were not being used, the counsel said the civilian government was capable of handling the situation but it lacked the will to deal with the problem.

Mr Gillani said there was no ethnic strife in Karachi and innocent citizens were being targeted. He said everyone knew who were involved in target killings and the JIT report contained all relevant facts.

He said the credibility of the report on target killings in Karachi could not be challenged because it had been prepared by seven agencies. “The report identifies which political party is involved in the violence.”

Mr Gillani said the statement of Ajmal Pahari, a suspected target killer, before the JIT clearly showed that he got training in India for making Karachi a separate state.

He said the situation could be brought under control and elements behind the violence identified in the light of Pahari’s admission. He rejected the IG’s claim that target killings were the result of ethnic divide and said the word “ethnic” was introduced by a political party which came into existence in 1986.

Mr Gillani said drugs, land and bhatta (extortion) mafias were involved in target killings, adding that statements of former Sindh home minister Zulfikar Mirza could not be ignored. He said the May 12, 2007, carnage in Karachi could not be ignored and the elements involved in it were also behind the recent spree of target killings.

The chief justice asked the counsel why was Mr Mirza making disclosures now and why had he remained silent for eight years.

Mr Gillani said the army should be called under Article 147 so that administrative powers remained with the provincial government, rather than under Article 245 which deprived the political set-up of such powers.

He said the involvement of “Indian agents” in target killings could not be ruled out because certain killers had been trained in Indian camps.

He requested the court to summon Zulfikar Mirza and investigate the allegations he had levelled against Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

At the last hearing, the bench which includes Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Justice Ghulam Rabbani had ordered the Sindh police chief to submit after Eid holidays a report on FIRs registered over the past month.

On Monday, Advocate Abdul Mujeeb Pirzada, the counsel for the Sindh Bachao Committee, alleged that the government was deliberately not pursuing cases of target killings. He said the government was more interested in talks in London to appease its coalition partner.

He said land grabbers’ groups backed by allies of the government were occupying state land and there was no protection for the common man. He said threats and fear were forcing people to leave the country and causing a flight of capital.

The court adjourned the hearing till Tuesday.