KARACHI, Sept 20: The Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) of the anti-terrorism court-I, Niamat Ali Randhawa, on Thursday refused to appear in the cases being tried inside the Central Prison due to what he described a cold response of the officials concerned to provide him security and conveyance to and from the prison.

Mr Randhawa told Dawn that he was bound to appear in the high profile cases, which were tried inside the Central Prison. He said all the cases were of very sensitive nature therefore proper conveyance facility and security escort was very much required.

He said that the matter had been raised by an ATC Judge-III, Arshad Noor Khan, on June 3, 2003 who had ordered the relevant town police officer (TPO) to provide security to the SPP, as mentioned in Section 21 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.

He said a letter and then a reminder in this regard had been sent by the registrar Special Courts, Home Department, Karachi, Zahoor Ahmed Hakro to the provincial police officer on May 10, 2006 and July 1, 2006 respectively stating that the SPP was conducting high profile cases and required proper security meaures, so that he may discharge his duties effectively and regularly.

Sindh Home Secretary Brig (retd) Ghulam Mohammad Mohataram had also sent a letter to the CCPO Azhar Farooqui on March 15, 2007 to ensure provision of security guards and police van to the public prosecutor, but to no avail.

Another letter, he said, had been sent by the additional registrar special courts STA/ATA Home Department to Deputy Inspector General (East) Karachi Mir Zubair for the same purpose, but he also did not take any action in this regard.Mr Randhawa added that similar letters had been sent by two ATCs judges Ghulam Ali Samtio and Syed Saghir Hussain Zaidi to the Sindh home secretary on July 5 and July 7 respectively but the government failed to respond.

“I have personally tried to apprise the CCPO of my problems and visited his office thrice, but he did not provide me a chance to meet him” Mr Randhawa said.