The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday imposed fine of Rs 10,000 each on cabinet secretary, Sindh chief secretary and Sindh census commissioner for their failure to file responses to a petition seeking holding of census of the population before the local government elections.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar expressed annoyance over the official respondents for not complying with the court orders. At the joint request of federal and provincial law officers, the bench gave respondents – cabinet secretary, chief Secretary Sindh and census commissioner two weeks time to file their detailed and comprehensive comments subject to the cost of Rs 10,000 each. The court directed them to deposit the fine within a week from today.
The hearing of case was adjourned till November 25.
The petitioner, Dr Muhammed Siddique Rathore, vice president of the Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, had moved the court seeking its directives for the respondents to hold a census of the population of the province before holding local government elections.
He said there were glaring contradictions in the statements of the prosecution witnesses which could not be sustained in the eyes of the law as well as the rulings of superior courts.
It is pertinent to mention here that victim’s family members, his father, Aurangzeb Khan, mother Ambreen, and sisters Pareshay and Maha later filed their affidavits whereby they pardoned the convicts without any pressure, coercion or interest, but in the name of Allah Almighty.
He said due to callousness and apathy of the rulers, the JI leaders in Bangladesh were being persecuted and sentenced to death although they had rendered huge sacrifices for the sake of Pakistan. He said Prof Ghulam Azam had breathed his last behind the bars, Abdul Qadir Mullah had been hanged to death, and death sentences had been announced against two other JI leaders – Mutiur Rahman Nizami and Mir Qasim Ali – but the Pakistan government was maintaining a criminal silence on the issue.
The JI chief said the colonial powers were bent upon wiping out this country by thrusting a nuclear war on it and they were also trying to split this country on racial and ethnic basis as had been done in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Separately, Milli Yakjehti Council (MYC) President Sahibzada Abul Khair Zubair and Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Liaqat Baloch strongly condemned the torturing of a Christian couple to death at Kot Radha Kishan and called for a high-level enquiry into the incident.
They said the enquiry committee of the MYC, Punjab, would examine the Kot Radha Kirshan tragedy in details.
