LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday summoned Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Aslam Tareen for April 4 on a petition challenging police crackdowns against sheesha cafes in the city. Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain was hearing a petition filed by restaurant owners Danial Arif and Arif Saleem. The petitioners, through their counsel, Ahmed Pansota, said that they own restaurants and cafes where sheesha is served. They said that on March 17, some policemen led by the Liberty SHO forcibly entered Daniyal’s Sheikhoo’s Cafe at MM Alam Road and Arif Saleem’s Cafe Life at Saeed Block, Gulberg and ordered them to stop selling sheesha. When the restaurant management asked them to show any notification, the policemen said that they were conducting raids on verbal orders of the Lahore CCPO.
Police also confiscated two sheeshas from Sheikhoo’s Cafe and four from Cafe Life. The petitioner’s counsel said that police raids were illegal and an attempt to blackmail cafe owners to close their businesses. He said that his clients were well-respected businessmen and the police raids had damaged their reputation in the market. Pansota said that his clients were doing business under Article 18 of the Constitution which allows every citizen to conduct any legal business. The petitioner’s counsel requested the court to declare the police raids as illegal and order the Punjab Police inspector general to stop police from any future raids.
He also requested the court to order registration of cases against the police officials who had ordered the raids. – serves notice on senior police officials: Justice Rauf Ahmad Sheikh of the Lahore High Court on Thursday issued notice to the inspector general of police, deputy inspector general of police (operations), the CCPO, and other respondents on a petition by Zhong Li Han, head of a Chinese company, who alleged that the police were impeding their transport business at the behest of a local transporter and harassing him by registering false cases against the company.
Requiring the respondents to file reply to the petition within a week, the court restrained the respondents from causing harassment to the petitioner and his company, Guizhou Yunna Aircraft Manufacturing Company (China). About a100 Chinese CNG buses are being run in the city by the company whose country manager is Dr Waqar Ali Khan. The petitioner alleged that Akhtar Shahzad, a transporter, wants the company to wind up its business in Pakistan so that he could take over. The petitioner said the police implicated Waqar in false cases and were also threatening him.
