Rights activists to move SC for judicial commission to probe Rao Anwar’s 444 ‘encounters’

Civil society and rights activists along with the father of Naqeebullah Mehsud have announced they will file a constitutional petition with the Supreme Court for a judicial commission to probe the 444 deaths allegedly caused by former police officer Rao Anwar and his team in fake encounters from 2011 to 2017.Addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday, the petitioners said the Sindh government had not played an effective role in sending the culprits behind bars, and for this reason, an independent judicial commission was needed to properly investigate the 444 murders carried out by Anwar and his team in violation of fundamental rights of the citizens.The applicants included human rights activist Jibran Nasir, Nazim Fida Hussain Haji and Jamshed Raza Mahmood. In the petition, a which copy is available with The News, the applicants appealed to the SC to constitute an independent commission headed by a retired judge who served in the high courts or at the apex court and comprising relevant civil society persons to conduct a detailed investigation and submit a report in the court within three months. They further stated that it was more important to collect facts pertaining to the 444 people who had been bolted down by Anwar to ascertain if they were genuinely involved in encounters or not. If all or some of them were executed in violation of fundamental rights, then what administrative action should be taken against those officials who were involved in such barbaric business for years, they added.“It is the right time to unmask all those characters including civil servants who subverted the accountability of these illegal extrajudicial murders,” they said, added that if the apex court allowed the petition for hearing and formed an independent judicial commission, the families of the victims would get some financial compensation which would be recovered from guilty officers.Likewise, the commission would help to suggest legislative and executive measures to prevent such executions in future.After the press conference, talking to The News, Jibran Nasir revealed that the 444 people killed may included missing persons and families of those victims may have been searching for their recovery. It would not be surprising if the judicial commission fould missing persons in the list of the 444 people executed by Rao Anwar and his team, he said.He added that Anwar had been a very influential officer, especially in District Malir, and had conducted fake encounters, but the irony was that none of the authorities concerned took interest in investigating those encounters. Resultantly, thousands of people suffered, hundreds of women lost their husbands and thousands of children became orphans. “Who is responsible? No one is ready to accept responsibility and end extrajudicial killings.”Nasir, however, said that recently the Sindh government had provided security to witnesses in the Naqeebullah Mehsud case and the investigation officer was also taking interest in the case. “When the Naqeebullah case was moved to the court, the investigation officer was not ready to present the inquiry report to the court. But in the last few months, the situation has changed for Rao Anwar and his killer squad.”About the new petition that he intends to file in the SC, he said the provincial government and the Sindh police both were responsible to furnish the record of those 444 people who had lost their lives. “From the record, law enforcement agencies, and lawmaking and decision-making bodies would easily ascertain how many of the 444 murdered were innocent.”

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/2GyPKMP