ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice has given the Punjab police a month to implement Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Shabbar Raza Rizvi’s report on the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.

The committee said that if the report was not implemented, the Establishment Division would be asked to attach the case in the personal files of police officials named in the report.

Committee chair MNA Riaz Fatyana from the PTI expressed dismay that the relevant departments were reluctant to implement reports and judicial commissions’ deliberations, saying this was tantamount to making a mockery of the system.

“The directives of this committee are not taken seriously, similarly the findings of judicial commissions and inquiries were left aside to rot – so why do we waste time to establish he commissions and hold inquires,” Mr Fatyana asked.

The committee was considering the Punjab police’s response to the implementation status of reports onterrorist attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the murder of judges in the Sialkot district jail.

Parliamentary committee says if report is not implemented, case will be attached to files of police officials

The committee had asked the inspector general of police Punjab (IGP) to appear before it in person, but he was represented at the meeting by Rawalpindi Regional Police Officer Sohail Tajik.

A Punjab home department official read out the brief of the judicial commission’s report on the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team, which said that almost all the Punjab police officers posted in Lahore at the time were guilty of laxityand did not consider the gravity of terror conditions.

The parliamentarians were informed that the commission had named police officials who were negligent in executing their duties, which led to the attack on the cricketers.

The names read out included then IGP Khalid Farooq, then capital city police officer Haji Abdul Rehman, deputy inspector general of police (operations) Amjad Javed, Model Town superintendent of police, Gulberg deputy superintendent of police and the Gulberg station house office, while the senior superintendent of police (operations) had been on leave.

After the report was read out, Mr Fatyana said: “Now, more than a decade after the attack, one of the officers named in the judicial report has been promoted to the rank of IGP, one is CPO and all others have gained after being named as irresponsible officers.’

Mr Tajik responded by telling him that a Punjab cabinet subcommittee had cleared the officers.

But when committee members, including MNA Aliya Kamran, asked if the subcommittee report was presented to and approved by the Punjab cabinet, the answer was no.

The committee also asked about action taken by the police over an incident at the Sialkot jail in July 2003, when a team of judicial officers led by the Sialkot additional district and sessions judgevisited the prison and were taken hostage.

Mr Fatyana said judicial officers had complained about a controversial commando raid that led to four judges being killed by police firing.

He asked if the police had conducted an inquiry into this incident, as well as a reason why post-mortem examinations of the deceased were not carried out.

When they did not receive a response from Mr Tajik, the committee unanimously gave the police a month to implement the judicial report.

The committee also considered the Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Bill 2019 and approved it along with a dissenting note from MNAs Nafeesa Shah and Ms Kamran. Amendments to the Muslim family laws were deferred.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2020