Speedy trial of terror cases: SC judge asks Sindh govt to engage more inspectors for investigation

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Supreme Court’s Justice Anwar Zaheer, who is also monitoring judges of the anti-terrorism courts, has directed the authorities to increase the number of inspectors and assign them to the terrorism-related cases.

He issued these directions during a meeting to review the performance of ATCs in the province.

The minutes of the meeting said that Justice Jamali was informed that the investigation of anti-terrorism cases could not be assigned to the police officers below the rank of an inspector. The meeting was told that no progress was made in increasing the number of inspectors and this was causing inordinate delay in submission of challans in courts.

The provincial home secretary told the chair that the government was keen on raising the number of inspectors which would help avoid delays in submission of challans. Justice Jamali directed the authorities to immediately take steps to increase the number of police inspectors and assign them to the terrorism cases as presently there were around 50 investigating inspectors who could not pull off the growing backlog of cases.

The chair expressed displeasure when it was told that out of 190 challans, 33 challans were yet to be submitted and no plausible explanation had been offered for the delay. It directed the SSPs of investigation wing to examine the reasons for non-completion of challans and proceed against the officers if no plausible explanation is offered.

The meeting took notice of the non-payment of funds to investigation wing saying if it was not given cost to undertake this exercise, so it was next to impossible for it to investigate and submit challans in courts in time.

It directed the Sindh police chief to disburse the entire allocated funds within seven days. The judge observed that this omission would further deteriorate law and order situation in Karachi if investigation wing was not strengthened.