‘Malik should quit office until BB murder probe’

Hearing a plea seeking the registration of a second FIR in Benazir Bhutto murder case, the Supreme Court on Monday observed that Interior Minister Rehman Malik should dissociate himself from the official post until the completion of the investigation into the case, as his involvement in the murder was claimed by the applicant.
The court also inquired from deputy attorney general that despite spending millions of dollars, why had the federal government not published the United Nations (UN) investigation report into the BB murder case.
The court said it was unfortunate that the PPP of Benazir Bhutto was in power but it was opposing the registration of a fresh FIR for further investigation of the case. A three-member bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez was hearing a plea filed by Chaudhry Aslam, former protocol officer of the Benazir Bhutto, seeking the registration of a second FIR into the Benazir Bhutto murder case. Aslam sought the registration of a second FIR against 12 respondents, including former president Gen Musharraf, former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, former law minister Babar Awan, then acting interior minister Lt-Gen (r) Hamid Nawaz, former director general of the Intelligence Bureau Ijaz Hussain Shah, former interior secretary Syed Kamal Shah, former spokesman of Interior Ministry Brig (r) Javed Iqbal Cheema, former Rawalpindi DCO Irfan Elahi and the former Rawalpindi SSP.
During the hearing, the CJ questioned how could fair investigation be expected when an accused person was sitting on top of affairs. He observed that Malik should appear to say that he was ready to disassociate himself from the official post and face the investigation into BB’s murder.
The CJ observed that it was sad that the government was making all efforts that a fresh FIR was not registered against Kamal Shah, Javed Iqbal Cheema and others. Earlier, the court was informed that two respondents, Rehman Malik and Pervez Elahi, had opposed the registration of the second FIR.
In his para wise comments, Malik said all the accused had already been arrested in this case, therefore, there was no need to register a second FIR. Anwar Mansoor Khan, counsel for Malik, requested the bench that he wanted to file a reply, therefore, the case may be adjourned for a week. He contended that the applicant wanted to hush up BB’s murder case, therefore, he had moved an application with malafide intention after the passage of three years.
He said the applicant was not an aggrieved person in the case; therefore a fresh case could not be registered on his application. Justice Khilji Arif Hussain then said the applicant was a worker of the party as well as an eyewitness of the incident on December 27, 2007; therefore he was an aggrieved person in the case.
Meanwhile, Rasheed A Rizvi, counsel for the applicant, stated that the government had not conducted investigations in view of the UN report. He said although the government was seeking opinion in the 40 year-old-case of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it was not interested in reopening the BB murder case, which was a fresh one.