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GUJRANWALA, March 2: An anti-terrorism court judge ordered on Friday Muhammad Sarwar, alleged killer of woman minister Zille Huma, to arrange his lawyer until March 9 after the defence council refused to represent the accused in the case. Judge Tariq Iftikhar Ahmed appointed advocate Muhammad Tariq as state defence council but he declined the offer, saying that a District Bar Association’s (DBA) resolution had barred all lawyers not to represent the accused in any court. The judge will issue charge sheet against Sarwar on March 9. The court provided him the copies of charges levelled against him by the prosecution. Sarwar allegedly killed Huma on Feb 20 just as she was about to address a political meeting at the Muslim League House.
DBA President Ilyas Rehan, however, said the bar would allow Tariq to pursue Sarwar’s case if the accused write to the bar for a lawyer.
PENALISED: The Education Department has taken action against 120 teachers on the recommendation of the Punjab Chief Minister’s Monitoring Team. Monitoring’ team official Jehanzeb Mirza said that one teacher was forcibly retired, six were dismissed from service, 26 censured and 60 warned and the salary of 11 teachers had been stopped. He claimed that effective monitoring of the schools had brought about positive changes. He said that code of conduct for the monitoring team and teachers had been issued which would be implemented strictly.
SUSPENDED: The Punjab Communication and Works secretary on Friday suspended from service six officials of the highway department on the charge of corruption.
The secretary has also ordered a departmental inquiry against them. Those suspended were: Gujranwala highway XEN Malik Riasat; four SDOs — Muhammad Zubair, Khursheed Ahmed, Shahid Najam and Ijaz Ahmed; and sub-engineers, Muhammad Naeem Butt and Muhammad Munir.
DISQUALIFIED: An election tribunal disqualified on Friday a nazim and a naib nazim of Union Council No 83 on the charge of stating wrong information about their assets. Malik Iqbal filed an election petition, saying that nazim Azeem Gujjar and his deputy, Tasadaq Hussain, had misstated their assets. The tribunal disqualified Gujjar and his naib and declared successful their runner-ups.
