ISLAMABAD: Taking note of the misuse of power by government officials, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, taking a cue from the court martial of a serving general in India, said on Friday that those responsible will be brought to book.
“Why don’t a few top guns in our country get booked for their wrongdoings,” the chief justice asked during hearing the case of an alleged fake encounter by the police in Daska one year ago. “It’s high time that some heads roll,” he said.
The fake encounter, in which a boy was gunned down, was followed by the suspension of some low ranking officials. The police later mentioned in an inquiry report that a compromise was made with heirs of the deceased. The court, however, rejected the report and observed that the responsible top officials were left untouched.
The CJP was heading a four member bench that was hearing case against police officials including former Regional Police Officer Gujranwala Zulfiqar Cheema and DPO Sialkot Ameen Awais. According to the police inquiry report, 16 low ranking police officials were sacked in connection with the fake encounter case.
These include four inspectors, five sub-inspectors, one assistant sub-inspector and five constables. An inspector was also forced to retire. The court in its order directed the Inspector General Police (IGP) to take personal interest in the matter, instead of saving the skin of “petti bhais”.
Citing the example of the Indian Lt General who was court-martialled, the chief justice urged Pakistan to follow this precedent.
Top officials have privately acknowledged that they are scared of such kinds of accountability because the snowball effect of the court martial is already being sensed in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday blamed this sort of police culture for target killings in the country. “Your decision to kill someone with rifles invokes people to keep this practice in the streets due to which lawlessness has increased since 1966 when such kind of police encounters started,” he observed.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2011.
