KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the provincial police officer to take disciplinary action against a senior superintendent of police for his failure to arrest a man convicted of murdering a police officer.

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Nazar Akbar asked inspector general of police to submit a compliance report within a month after taking action against SSP (South) Zubair Nazeer Shaikh while keeping in view his inefficient performance in the present case.

The bench observed it granted multiple opportunities to arrest an absconding appellant and produce him before court, but the SSP failed in discharging his duties.

Syed Abu Irfan, aka Urfee, through his lawyer filed an appeal before the SHC after the trial court had sentenced him to 10-year imprisonment last year in the murder of DSP Nawaz Ranjha and his driver gunned down near the Radio Pakistan building in 2010.

The SHC had granted bail to the appellant after suspending the conviction order of the trial court, but he jumped the bail and did not appear before the bench.

When the matter came up for hearing before the bench also comprising Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan, the SSP turned up and filed a progress report. However, the bench observed that he had repeatedly failed to produce the absconding appellant.

It further said that time was granted twice to the SSP on his request on Nov 26 and Dec 3 and lastly on Dec 10 the DIG also appeared and requested for more time and thus 12 days were granted.

However, the bench was informed the DIG had reportedly tested positive for Covid-19 and it observed that it was not the DIG who is supposed to run behind the absconder; rather the complete team had failed.

It further observed that most pathetic part of the police performance was that the SSP sent a letter to the National Database and Registration Authority on Dec 2 for blocking CNIC of the absconding appellant and after a couple of days Nadra replied that as per policy a CNIC could not be blocked without court order.

“However, the SSP seems to have been satisfied with this reply and he neither tried to lay his hands on the policy referred by Nadra in their reply, nor he took any action pursuant to such policy whereby the police for discharging its duties to execute perpetual warrant, or otherwise to arrest any absconder, has to route its official duty through a court order”, it added.

The bench deplored that the police had eventually failed to arrest the absconder while the correspondence with other government functionaries showed that no one bothered to reply to letters.

It further noted that the entire progress report was nothing but full of remarks ‘Report is still awaited’ which indicated everything about arrest of absconder was on hold.

Staged encounter

The same bench has set aside the conviction of two men in police encounter and illicit weapons cases and issued notices to a police team involved in the staged encounter with direction to appear along with explanation on Jan 11.

The bench also asked the SSP Malir to hold an independent inquiry against them within 15 days and take disciplinary action for crossing the jurisdictional boundaries of their police station as well as violating law to engage in a staged encounter and framing the appellants in cases.

M. Sohail and Sherullah moved the SHC after the trial court had sentenced them to five years in prison for engaging the police in an encounter and possessing illegal arms.

The prosecution claimed the appellants along with Abdullah Masood attacked a police party in December last year to avoid their arrest in Malir and after exchange of fire Masood was killed and appellants were arrested in wounded condition.

Brown bear

An SHC divisional bench on Wednesday directed zoological garden officials to overhaul the cage of a brown bear and shift it to a new habitat.

The bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan asked the authorities to make sure that all animals were kept in healthy and safe environment.

A petition was filed about the health of a baby bear being kept in the zoo.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2020