ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction at the presentations given by the Punjab home department on the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the killing of four judges in Sialkot jail.

Read: 8 years ago today: Attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team

A meeting of the committee, chaired by MNA Riaz Fatyana of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, was held in a committee room of the ministry of law and justice.

One of the Punjab home department’s presentations included the Judicial Commission’s report on the attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team, due to which international cricket vanished from Pakistan. The report revealed that not a “single concerned/responsible police officer” was present at the site of the attack.

No police officer deployed for security of the team was present at site of attack, says judicial commission report

The Sir Lankan team was attacked by gunmen on March 3, 2009, when a bus was carrying the members of the team to Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

Mr Fatyana said that past experience showed that, after such incidents, responsible officers were suspended for a few weeks and then transferred to another department.

The committee directed the inspector general of Punjab police to provide details about the police officers who were responsible for security of the cricket team but were not present at the site of the attack, and what kind of action was taken against them, how many times they were promoted after the incident and what was their current position.

The committee chairman said that the report suggested that police officer Amjad Salimi was misfit for the service but he was appointed IG of Punjab police.

“The report was finalised but then IG did not bother to take action against police officers concerned,” Mr Fatyana deplored. “If recommendations of such reports are not implemented, why are these reports prepared?” he wondered.

Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Syed Naveed Qamar said that the report was an eye-opener and it was strange that the officers, who should have been sacked, were promoted.

Lal Chand of the PTI said that the parliamentary committee should summon the police officers and ask them to furnish explanation about their conduct.

Earlier it was observed by the committee that the report consisted of the 106 pages discussing the conduct of each police officer on duty on the day of incident, but only the pages containing findings were presented before the committee.

The committee deferred the agenda with directive to the representative of the Punjab home department to attend the next meeting after full preparation and with complete record identifying the IG of the province at the time of the attack and telling what action was taken by him on the report.

The committee said that a report should also be obtained from the secretary of the establishment division containing complete details of the careers and posting histories of the police officers nominated as responsible for the said incident, from the day of the attack till date.

Judges killing in prison

The committee was also briefed on the incident of killing of four judges in Sialkot district jail and told that no judicial commission was constituted to conduct an inquiry into the incident in which four judges were killed and the then district and sessions judge of Sialkot was injured.

Read: Three judges, 5 prisoners killed in Sialkot jail: Police action to free hostages ends in tragedy

Naveed Qamar said that it was strange that no one bothered to constitute a judicial commission on the incident.

The committee expressed dissatisfaction at the briefing and deferred the agenda till its next meeting with a directive to the Punjab home department to come up in the next meeting along with documents, including the FIR and post-mortem reports of the bodies of the judges and the department’s report on the incident.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019