Judge with liberal views targeted
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ISLAMABAD: Additional district and sessions judge Rafaqat Ahmed Khan Awan, who was killed in the terrorist attack on Monday, was about to complete the probationary period after which he would be confirmed as a judge in a couple of months.
Known for his liberal views, Awan was a young judge who had a year ago dismissed a petition that asked that an FIR be registered against former president Pervez Musharraf.
On April 24 last year, he dismissed a petition which was filed by the son of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi who asked that an FIR be registered against former president Pervez Musharraf for launching the 2007 operation on the mosque.
Rejecting the petition, Awan observed that after a lapse of seven years the petition had simply been filed to gain cheap publicity.
He did his LLB in 1997 and got an internship in the chamber of former deputy attorney general Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri in 1998.
He then started practice as an independent lawyer but later went to Canada from where he returned about five years ago and started practicing in Islamabad.
In 2012, he passed the Islamabad Judicial Service examination and was appointed as an additional district and sessions judge. His two years probation was about to end.
In fact, minutes before his death, Awan was talking about his probation with the counsel of a school.
He had admitted the appeal of the school against a stay order that had been passed against the admission process in the school.
The stay was given on the petition of a lawyer who filed it after his children were denied admission by the management of the school.
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Comments (30) Closed
Mar 04, 2014 08:38am
Nisaar main teri galiyon peh ai watan, keh jahan
Chali hai rasm keh koi na sar utha keh chale
Jo koi chahane wala tawaaf ko nikale
Nazar chura keh chale, Jismo-jan bacha keh chale
Hai ahel-e-dil ke liye ab yeh nazm-e-bast-o-kushaad
Keh sang-o-khisht muqayyad hain aur sag aazad
Bahut hain zulm keh dast-e-bahana-ju keh liye
Jo chand ahel-e-junoon tere naam leva hain
Baney hain ahel-e-hawas muddai bhi, munsif bhi
Kise wakil karen, kis-se munsifi chahen
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Mar 04, 2014 10:50am
Some apologists would now blame a non-existent third force knowingly, because of their unending love for Maulana Burqa and alikes! RIP Mr. Awan, its because of people like you that we still breathe.
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Mar 04, 2014 11:03am
until and unless the culprits are not nominated and taken to justice it is baseless that security arrangements would be provided. Why cameras not working, why the forty plus policemen haven't taken a single terrorist down. Until the police or whom ordered the police not to take action would bring to justice there is no benefit in providing security arrangements.
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Mar 04, 2014 11:32am
Define liberal.
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Mar 04, 2014 12:25pm
@Jamshed Khan:
Someone who does not want to blow himself to heaven asap.
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Mar 04, 2014 01:18pm
Mr. Awan....RIP! Our sincere condolences to your love ones. Shame on Pakistani government and Chief Of Army staff who let all the lives of true Pakistanis wasted.
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Mar 04, 2014 02:45pm
@Safdar Ali:
babu ji
is not army chief's duty but police and interior ministry duty to secure capital.
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Mar 04, 2014 07:10pm
@Jamshed Khan:
Liberal mean love and respect for life. Live and let other live.
Non Liberal mean force other people do what you are doing , your message is more important than human life.
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Mar 04, 2014 07:13pm
@Jamshed Khan:
A Liberal in this country is simply anyone who believes in the injunction "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". Who does not believe in cruelty, revenge and hatred as a way of life, someone who can see good in others. Someone who believes that women are human and animals should be treated humanely. That is a Pakistani Liberal.
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Mar 04, 2014 08:38pm
Wow.. a big wow. If you express anything against their point of view, they will kill you.
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Mar 04, 2014 09:21pm
@Karachi Wala:
Very well said.
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Mar 04, 2014 10:25pm
Jinnah had never expected a Pakistan where the Patriots would be labelled as traitors and then imprisoned or killed and the real traitors would be highlighted as heroes to roam scot free even after committing the most heinous of crimes against the nation and humanity.
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Mar 04, 2014 10:31pm
a lot of lawyers were quiet when Salman Taseer was killed.
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Mar 04, 2014 11:10pm
@Karachi Wala:
Very very apt.
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Mar 04, 2014 11:20pm
Fiza and Rafaqat Hussain Awan. The names tell it all. It was always about the sect. These murders always had a sectarian agenda.
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Mar 04, 2014 11:26pm
@Samar Khan:Agreed.
Nothing,no matter how horrible, ever really happens without the approval of the government.Problem is not the doing,it is; peoples in power having to admit that they knew.
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Mar 04, 2014 11:46pm
On behalf of the American people, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Richard G. Olson today extended his deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the dreadful act of terrorism that took place at Islamabad
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Mar 05, 2014 12:41am
The pattern of terrorists attack is similar to that was happening in Indian Punjab .Religion and religious places used as a shield . How did they controlled, need to be learned from them?
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Mar 05, 2014 01:58am
I saw his daughter on news crying Baba Baba...i can not forget that so painful for me as a father myself :(((((((((((((((((((((( These people are not human, i don't know what is going to happen if the situation remains the same .......
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Mar 05, 2014 02:25am
Will the Lone Pakistani survivor please stand up ?
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Mar 05, 2014 06:43am
So he is targeted because he dared to disobey Lal Masjid Cleric? who want to register case against Musharraf! Why Police is investigating anywhere but not directly Lal Masjid?
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Mar 05, 2014 09:47am
so sad!!!!
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Mar 05, 2014 07:19pm
So we allow killing of our youngest and brightest at the hands of terrorists and negotiate with them truce.
The Sharifs and Imran Khans are delusions if they think they will be safe once they accommodate these ruthless criminals to walk amongst them.
Pakitanis are yearning to enter the 21-century, while the older generation -Sharif and IKs want to drag them back to the stone age of the bearded ones.
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Mar 05, 2014 07:22pm
@NHM:
Hate to break it to all of us but Jinnah's Pakistan is dead. The mullahs are in control. Secularism has gone into a coma.
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Mar 06, 2014 02:10am
These kind of heart wrenching shameful events lead the liberal and secular people to flee from Pakistan. There are so many people around living in stone age, having conventional stereotypical beliefs denying rational and logical thinking. Getting rid of extremists has to be the priority of government. If this is happening in the capital city then one wonders how worse it will be in other major cities. Nobody has got the right to take law in his hands and kill anyone at their will. This is not just the war of force and power but its also a war of mindset which has been cultivated from Zia ul Haq's era. Its a total mess out there...
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Mar 06, 2014 01:18pm
It so clear that current government's motive is only to punish Musharaf nothing else...
They are ruining the country..
May Allah save pakistan...
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Mar 06, 2014 07:02pm
@malik:
I don't want to blow myself to heavens. Does that make me a liberal? Or do I have to be a drinking, bribing, adultrating person to be a liberal?
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Mar 06, 2014 07:04pm
@Imran Ahmed:
How much do you know about this judge that this is what he believed in? Don't take me wrong, I still think it unjustified to kill in cold blood.
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Mar 07, 2014 12:40am
I hope my comment will be published and DAWN would admit its mistake. Interior Minister has stated in the NA that this judge was not a target and was accidentally killed by firing of a guard.
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Mar 07, 2014 01:50am
To be Liberal in Pakistan is serious crim. We should stop talking of Jinnah's Pakistan. In fact after 1979 it is Zia ul Haq and JI Pakistan. We are gone very far in romance with Taliban just look at the statement of our interior minister, that Talban did not kill the judge. I think Taliban came there to have some romantic scenes with the public there. Taliban are really innocent they cannot kill any body. All people died there are killed by their guards. Shame on our political government for passing these baseless statement and on our agencies who had not only created these butchers but still nurturing them for Kabul and Delhi.
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