ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday took up a petition seeking the constitution of a commission to probe how the Islamabad bound PIA flight PK-661 crashed near Havelian on Dec 7, 2016.

The relatives of two of the passengers on board the plane filed the petition in which they have asked for an independent investigation commission to find out the cause of the accident.

PK-661 took off from Chitral and crashed near Havelian, killing all passengers on board, including renowned singer turned evangelist, Juniad Jamshed.

IHC Justice Aamer Farooq took up the petition and after hearing the preliminary arguments, asked the petitioner’s counsel to come up with relevant sections of the law to support the petition.

The petition has been filed by Shahida Mansoor, the mother of Ahmed Mansoor Janjua, who was the co-pilot of the plane and Atia Naz, the sister of Khawar Sohail, who was also killed in the crash.

They have cited the federation of Pakistan through the secretary Ministry of Defence, DG Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, PIA chairman, chairman National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences through secretary health and the Capital Development Authority through its administrator as respondents.

The petition says that instead of checking the air-worthiness of its planes, the PIA staff sacrificed black goats in order to seek divine protection for their aircrafts and passengers and claims that crash was a result of PIA incompetence.

The petitioners have also questioned the ability of NDMA and PDMA for handling air crash incidents and have asked the court to direct the two authorities to formulate standing operating procedures for rescue services in cases of air crashed.

The court adjourned further hearing till next week.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2018