HYDERABAD, Jan 11: The Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, has directed Sindh AAG Masood A. Noorani to file comments of the principal and five officials of the Petaro Cadet College.

The order was passed on a constitutional petition, filed by Mohammad Aslam Saffar of Saffar Khashkheli village, seeking registration of a murder case against principal Abid Saleem, security officer Sher Mohammad, administration officer Shabbir Zaidi, electrical wing supervisor Yousuf Pathan, and two other college officials, Asim Bukhari and Hanif Rajput.

The petitioner said the principal had started harassing the villagers and shopkeepers in order to displace them.

He said in this regard the villagers sent representations to the higher authorities, including President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

The petitioner said the pricipal, in collusion with the police, had implicated his father, Mohammad Saffar, and other villagers in false cases.

On Nov 11, 2002, security officer Sher Mohammad, along with security force, raided the village and took the petitioner and his father away.

The petitioner said the principal asked them to vacate the village land and warned them not to resort to protest but on their refusal, the pricipal pushed his father, who fell down.

He said his father died the same day as he was a cardiac patient and could not bear the mental torture.

He said he went to the police station to lodge an FIR against the principal and the other officials but the police refused to register the FIR.

The petitioner said when he and his relatives staged a protest demonstration, the ASP, DCO and the EDO arrived there and assured them the case would be registered.

But, he said, instead of registering the FIR, the police issued threats to the villagers. The police deliberately did not obtain the autopsy report, he added. He prayed the court to direct the Dadu DPO to conduct an inquiry into the matter.