KARACHI: In what appears to be a move to protect senior police officials responsible for the May 23 siege of the Sindh High Court, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Friday suspended two SP-rank officers and constituted an inquiry committee asking its members to submit a report within 10 days.

Initially the provincial administration — which believed that former home minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza was being provided extraordinary relief in the form of pre-arrest bail in terrorism cases — paid no heed towards what armed but plain-clothes policemen in balaclavas did on the premises of the high court on May 23 when Dr Mirza arrived there for his bail extension hearing.

It realised the gravity of the situation only when a two-judge bench headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah took up the issue and set May 28 as the date to indict top police officials, including Inspector General of Police Ghulam Hyder Jamali, for contempt of court.

However, the bench showed great restraint on Thursday when it deferred the indictment of the police officers and gave the Sindh chief minister a chance to take action against those responsible for the high court siege. It ordered the chief secretary to meet the CM and submit a report on whatever action he had taken in court on Monday (June 1).

On Friday, CM Shah chaired a meeting at CM House “in the light of high court orders issued in the contempt case of besieging the high court on May 23”.

He ‘transferred’ SP Zeeshan Siddiqui and SP Asad Raza — the two officers who were posted in Karachi’s South and Central districts but sent to the Sindh High Court on May 23 — to the IGP office with immediate effect.

The CM also took serious notice of the police action and constituted an inquiry committee comprising chairman of the chief minister inspection team Subhan Memon and works and services secretary Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah to probe the matter and submit a report within 10 days.

He was informed that IGP Jamali had on May 25 suspended SP Major Khalil of the special security unit, acting Preedy SHO Naeemuddin and 11 commandos of the SSU for “being involved in the incident [that] occurred outside the Sindh High Court on May 23”.

The IGP also ordered a departmental inquiry and nominated AIG (Establishment) Khadim Hussain Rind as the inquiry officer to find the role of each suspended police officer in the incident within seven days.

The suspended commandos of SSU are: Aamir Khan, Ali Raza, Aftab Anwar, Zain Ali, Muhammad Kashif, Muhammad Shoaib, Shahjahan, Muhammad Tariq, Muhammad Shah, Imran Khan Jatt and Fareedullah Khan.

On May 23, a heavy contingent of police had laid a siege around the SHC. Guards of Dr Mirza’s and media persons were brutally beaten up by policemen in balaclavas at the main gate of the SHC building. The policemen also smashed several parked vehicles and snatched cameras from journalists.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2015

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