0
KARACHI, April 24: The Sindh High Court adjourned on Monday PPP leader and former federal minister Asif Ali Zardari’s plea for transfer of the Mir Murtaza Bhutto murder case against him from the court of district and sessions judge (east).
The applicant’s counsel, Advocate Azizullah K. Shaikh, said he had not received a copy of the comments filed by the trial court in response to the SHC order. Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, who was hearing the application on Monday, adjourned the hearing to a date in office.
Mr Zardari, husband of former premier Benazir Bhutto, has alleged that he does not expect a fair trial from the court of DSJ (east) as he has dismissed his applications for acquittal for want of evidence and for exemption from personal appearance under the influence of the National Accountability Bureau. The NAB and the government wanted him back in the jail, he said.
The transfer plea was earlier dismissed by the trial judge as, he said, the proceedings were being conducted strictly in accordance with the law. The applicant approached the high court against the dismissal order.
Mr Zardari is facing trial for assassination of MPA Mir Murtaza Bhutto and seven activists of his PPP (Shaheed Bhutto) near his Clifton residence on Sept 20, 1996. The victims were killed in a police encounter but the prosecution says it was staged in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy involving Mr Zardari and the then chief minister, Abdullah Baloch. Several police officers are also among the accused.
COMPENSATION RAISED: The Sindh High Court allowed on Monday 15 per cent increase in the rate of compensation payable to the owners of land acquired for the Pakistan Steel Mills.
About 22000 acres were acquired for the PSM colony in 1974. The owners were not satisfied with the amount of compensation fixed by the federal government had approached the Sindh High Court for fair and reasonable prices under the Land Acquisition Act. The SHC fixed an enhanced rate according to the then prevailing prices in the various ‘dehs’ or villages.
The owners, about 1200 in number, were not paid the court-fixed prices and continued to run from pillar to post for recovery of the amounts calculated on the basis of the court order. They moved a civil revision application for further enhancement of prices. The total involved amount to about Rs 530 million.
Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, who heard the application and arguments advanced by the claimants’ counsel, observed that the applicants were entitled to benefit of Section 28 (A) of the Land Acquisition Act and allowed a 15 per cent enhancement over and above the 1985 prices. The SHC nazir and the counsel would now work out the amounts payable to the claimants.
GICHKI CASE: Prisoners appearing as witnesses in the Sardar Hasan Gichki custodial death case would not be maltreated or deprived of facilities enjoyed by them under the law and rules, the inspector-general of prisons assured a Sindh High Court judge holding a probe into the demise of the Balochistan National Party activist.
Engineer Hasan Gichki, brother-in-law of BNP chief, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, and a former chief executive of the Lasbela Development Authority, died in the Central Prison, Karachi, where he was lodged in a narcotics case. His relatives and partymen alleged that he was tortured to death but the home department doctors’ board responsible for determining the causes of prison inmates’ death held after a post-mortem examination that he died of brain haemorrhage and there was no mark of injury on his body.
The relatives contested the findings and the home department constituted another board of doctors, comprising three professors and a neurosurgeon, to conduct another post mortem. The new board found that Mr Gichki was beaten up and his spinal cord and nose were badly damaged.
The department requested the SHC chief justice to constitute a judicial probe. The CJ first appointed an additional district and sessions judge but later transferred the inquiry to Justice Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery of the SHC.
Justice Jaffey initiated the probe and recorded the statements of three witnesses on Saturday. Co-prisoners Dr Ghulam Mustafa Qazi, Walidad Niazi and Anwar Baloch made serious allegations against the Landhi Jail and Central Prison superintendents, their deputies and their staff. They said evidence of the torture and killing could only be gathered from co-prisoners like them but they were being threatened by the jail superintendents and their subordinates.
The inquiry judge summoned the inspector-general of prisons on Monday. The IGP assured him that there would be no maltreatment of the prisoners volunteering to appear as witnesses before the inquiry commission.
The jail superintendents and their deputies are among the 10 officials nominated by complainant Qambar Ali Gichki as murder accused in his first information report. The FIR against the jail staff was registered by police following a direction by an additional district and sessions judge, who was moved by the aggrieved party under the criminal procedure code.
The witnesses said Hasan Gichki was deprived of his costly watch and other valuables and subjected to extortion before merciless beating and torture. The inquiry was adjourned to 2pm on Tuesday.
