LAHORE, Jan 19: A full bench of the Lahore High Court asked the Punjab chief secretary and police IGP as to why not the Rs21 billion budget for provincial police be freezed owing to its inability to improve the law and order.
The bench, comprising Justice Muzammal Khan, Justice M Bilal Khan and Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi, made the remarks while hearing a petition filed by Akbar Bhindar, the father of slain additional advocate general Arif Bhindar. The petitioner has sought the court’s intervention on police failure to arrest the killers of his son.
A panel of lawyers comprising advocates Mian Israr, Rabbiya Bajwa, Zulfikar Bokhari, Justice (retd) Syed Zahid Bokhari and Azam Tarar represented the father of the AAG.
“We all are very much concerned about the law and order,” observed the court, asking IGP Ahmad Nasim to explain as to why the police had failed to bring the law and order situation under control.
The court added that increase in police budget from Rs six billion to Rs21 billion had made no difference as far as the performance of the force was concerned.
When the court was informed that most of the nominated accused in the murder of Mr Bhindar and others had not been arrested so far, the IGP submitted that the accused must be arrested at the earliest, adding that he himself was very much upset at the killings of the two lawyers.
When the court asked him as to how much time was required to make the arrests, the IGP said the accused involved in the murders were hardened criminals and that it was not easy to arrest them so early.
Also present in the court, Punjab chief secretary Salman Saddique did not have a satisfactory answer when the court asked him to explain whether the postings of senior police officers had been made according to the Police Order, 2002. He was also asked to explain as to how a police officer could serve for over three years at one station.
The bench directed the IGP to arrest the accused involved in the murders and submit a report on Jan 26. The court also directed the chief secretary to submit minutes of a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi recently regarding the police performance and the law and order in the provine. The chief secretary was also asked to submit on next hearing a report regarding the postings of the police officers in the province.
Meanwhile, a strike call given by Punjab Bar Council (PBC) to boycott all courts in the province ended when the court asked the body to do so, saying that the court had taken up the matter and that the lawyers community should have confidence in it.