KARACHI, Feb 21: The Sindh High Court asked a sessions court on Thursday to conclude the trial of armed robbers who were caught looting commuters in a moving vehicle.
Street crimes are on the rise and courts should encourage witnesses, complainants, police and prosecution agency who risk their lives and limbs to catch hold of culprits in order to bring them to justice, Justice Khwaja Naveed Ahmed remarked while dismissing the bail application of an accused in the bus robbery case.
He directed the trial court to record the evidence of eye-witnesses within three months so that they were not required to hang around the court premises for an inordinately long period.
The bail application was moved by accused Naveed who, along with Abdul Karim and Baloch, boarded a bus at Agra Taj Colony. When the bus reached Mauripur Road, all three took out their pistols and started depriving the passengers of their cash and other valuable belongings. One of the passengers, who was also armed, fired a shot and one of the robbers was killed within the moving bus. A police mobile intercepted the bus, arrested the two accused and took possession of the body of their deceased accomplice. The looted personal effects of the passengers were recovered in the presence of eye witnesses, according to the prosecution.
Work on bus stand
A division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Khwaja Naveed Ahmed, meanwhile, asked the city district government to verify the documents of 54 petitioners of a katchi abadi near Yusuf Goth without halting work on the new bus stand in Baldia Town. The petitioners had sought an order against the CDGK restraining it from any construction work on the land claimed by them.
The petitioners said they were owners in rightful possession of their properties. They were granted ownership rights as slum dwellers but the government still claimed the land as its own in its capacity as the lessor. The city district government would verify the documents till March 12, when the petition would again come up for hearing.
Meanwhile, the bench allowed a petition by the owner of a house in an approved katchi abadi in Buffer Zone. Advocate Naveed Ahmad Khan submitted on behalf of the owner that he purchased the property from a person who had been granted a 99-year lease by the (defunct) Karachi Municipal Corporation, the CDGK’s predecessor.
PPP petitions
The Sindh High Court on Thursday fixed March 19 as the date of hearing of writ petitions filed by the late PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and incumbent co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari against the institution of Ehtesab (accountability) cases in 1998.The petitioners particularly questioned the request made by the then attorney-general, (the late) Chaudhry Mohammad Farooq, for assistance from the Swiss government for prosecuting the couple. The petitions were disposed of by the high court for want of territorial jurisdiction as all the impugned orders emanated from Islamabad. The disposal order was challenged by the petitioners before the Supreme Court, which remanded the petitions to the SHC for adjudication on merit.
Advocate Abdul Hafeez Lakho, Ms Bhutto’s counsel, said PPP legal adviser Farooq H. Naek would pursue the matter with instructions from Mr Zardari. Deputy Attorney-General Rizwan Ahmed Siddiqui said the petitions be fixed for re-hearing in accordance with the SC directions and to enable the petitioners’ counsel to make their submissions. The bench fixed March 19 for regular hearing.