Just a day before a larger bench of the Supreme Court is going to resume hearing of the Karachi law and order case today (Thursday), the Sindh government rushed to terminate the contract of Additional Home Secretary Waseem besides a dozen police officials on Wednesday.
In a related development, Owais Muzaffar Tappi, President Zardari’s foster brother, is also said to have submitted his written statement in the apex court’s Karachi registry denying all the accusations leveled against him.
Fearing a possible rebuke by the SC’s larger bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the provincial government went for cancellation of contracts of Waseem Ahmed and 13 high-ranking police officials in compliance with the court’s March 8 verdict issued in the hearing of Abbas Town and Karachi unrest suo motu cases.
The police officers whose contracts have been terminated include Commandant Police Training Centre Saeedabad Shaukat Ali Shah, Rasool Bakhsh, Police Consultant Captain (r) Salman Syed Muhammad, Project Director IT Tabasum Abbasi, SP Mirza, Abdul Majeed, CIA DIG Manzoor Ahmed Mughul, SC Mohafiz Lieutenant Colonel MA Wahid Khan, SP Traffic Mohib Ali, SP Muhammad Hassan and four others.
Meanwhile, a foster brother of President Asif Zardari, Owais Muzaffar Tappi, is believed to have submitted his written reply in the SC’s Karachi Registry.
Tappi’s statement came in response to an order of a three-member SC bench headed by Jawad S Khwaja, which had summoned to the court on Feb 28 the president’s brother along with officials of Sindh Board of Revenue.
The bench had also asked the rationale for providing Tappi with an extraordinary police security reportedly comprising of eight vehicles and 50 cops.
Mahmood Akhter Naqvi, in a petition that he filed in the Supreme Court, had accused Tappi and SBR officials of being involved in the grabbing of public land in the province.
Denying the charges leveled against him as false and baseless, Tappi said he was a peaceful law-abiding citizen holding no public office.
Tappi claimed his family was being maligned as his political opponents were leveling unfounded allegations against them.
Bilawal House, unofficial residence of President Zardari in Karachi, is reported to have refused twice to receive the court summons for Tappi.
Headed by Justice Chaudhry, the five-member larger bench would comprise Justices Jawwad S Khwaja, Khilji Arif Hussain, Amir Hani Muslim and Ejaz Afzal Khan.