FAISALABAD, April 19: Around 17 local journalists filed their names before the senior civil judge, Faisalabad, for recording statements about April 14, 2002, incident in which over two dozen mediamen had sustained injuries due to police baton-charge.

The Faisalabad Union of Journalists has also constituted a committee to pursue the case headed by Shamsul Islam Naz. An emergent session of the FUT has also been called on April 21 to decide the future line of action.

The one-man tribunal constituted by the Punjab government to inquire into the incident has announced the commencement of its proceedings.

The tribunal headed by DSJ Jawed Iqbal has directed the mediamen or any other person who is an eyewitness and willing to record statement to file names before senior civil judge Muhammad Yar Walana, who has been appointed as a Tribunal Registrar.

Earlier, the government immediately after the incident had constituted the inquiry tribunal under the supervision of former DSJ Sher Zaheer Khan, and was directed to complete the inquiry within a month.

However, the tribunal could not conduct formal proceedings and had automatically ceased to exist because of non-completion of proceedings within the stipulated period.