KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday disposed of a petition seeking suspension of a death warrant for Muttahida Qaumi Movement worker Saulat Ali Khan, better known as Saulat Mirza, after the petitioner’s counsel withdrew it.

Mirza’s sister, Sumera Wajahat, had petitioned the SHC against the issuance of a black warrant on the ground that an appeal against her brother’s conviction was still pending disposal before the Supreme Court, hence he could not be executed.

While issuing the black warrant for the convict, an antiterrorism court had fixed March 19 for the hanging of the MQM activist, who was condemned to death by an ATC on May 24, 1999 for killing the then managing director of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, his driver and his guard on July 5, 1997 in Defence Housing Authority.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that a criminal miscellaneous application regarding the death sentence of convict Mirza was pending disposal in the apex court and the ATC could not issue a black warrant for his execution till the disposal of the application.

A two-judge bench comprising Justices Abdur Rasool Memon and Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro observed that the apex court might be approached if the matter was pending disposal there.

Later, the bench disposed of the petition when the petitioner’s counsel withdrew it.

MQM workers’ detention case

The same bench directed an MQM leader, Gul Faraz Khan, to remove the objections raised by the registrar office in his petition against Rangers for detaining workers of his party and put off the hearing till March 16.

The petitioner submitted in the petition that the paramilitary troops raided Nine-Zero, the party headquarters in Azizabad, on March 11 and took away as many as 110 workers, including Muhammad Amir Khan, Yousuf Munir Shaeikh, Habib, Muhammad Hanif, Sabir Hassan, Muhammad Aslam Baloch, Syed Ahmed Raza, Mamtaz Ali, Hussain Ali, Mushahid Bashir and Khalid Rasheed.

He stated that the law-enforcers ransacked the party’s headquarters and took away Rs3.5 million in cash.

The petitioner, who is a member of the MQM coordination committee, said that the Rangers had kept the activists in illegal detention and they were also being harassed.

The petitioner requested the court to declare their confinement as illegal and direct the paramilitary force to produce them in court.

The home secretary, provincial police chief, Rangers director general, city police chief, heads of the crime investigation department and special investigation unit, and SHO of the Azizabad police station were impleaded as respondents.

Cane price fixed at Rs172 per 40kg

A division bench headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi fixed the sugar cane price at Rs172 per 40kg after the provincial government agreed to pay Rs12 subsidy to growers.

The bench was hearing the petition of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture against provincial authorities and the sugar mills’ owners for not paying the sugar cane growers the official price of their produce.

The bench disposed of the petition after the irrigation secretary informed the judges that the government was ready to pay Rs12 per 40kg subsidy to fix the price at Rs172 per 40kg as the sugar millers were also willing to pay Rs160 per 40kg.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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