ISLAMABAD, 8 January 2005 — A three-member bench of the Supreme Court here ordered suspension of senior police officers and doctors in a case of killing of four judges in Sialkot Jail and also directed Lahore High Court to cancel bails and reject the bail applications of the concerned officers and doctors in a hearing of the separate applications filed by former superintendent Sialkot Jail, Sikandar Hayat and a father of one of the judges killed in the incident.
The court inquired from Punjab Additional Advocate General Afshan Ghaznafar as to why these officers were not suspended till now and observed that they could influence the witnesses and evidences by remaining in uniform.
The three-member Bench consisted of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, Justice Rana Bhagwan Das and Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan. The prisoners had taken hostage four civil judges on July 25, 2003, in Sialkot Jail.
Later, in a police operation, the four judges were killed and subsequently 17 police officers and doctors named accused got bails before arrests approved by filing applications in the Lahore High Court.
The officers include: DIG Gojranawala, Malik Mohammad Iqbal, former DCO Sialkot, Amjad Javed Saleemi, DPO Gujrat, Raja Munawwar Hussain, Dr. Mohammad Firdaus Shah and Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital’s Dr. Sajid Hussain and others.
Former Superintendent of Jail, Sikandar Hayat, is the only police officer still in police custody. He had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the decision of Lahore court.
Meanwhile, there is no plan of the US authorities to vacate Shahbaz airbase, Jacobabad, a senior official of the Civil Aviation Authority said. Just after 9/11, the US authorities took control of the Shahbaz air base as the base camp for their operation in Afghanistan. “Although, the operation from Jacobabad has shrunk substantially, but there is no sign of vacating the airport by the US forces,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
In another development, terrorists are hiring small-time hoodlums and trapping the unemployed youths for their subversive attacks. The information obtained from the recently arrested band from downtown Lahore has brought some chilling facts to surface. They told the investigators how an unidentified terrorist trapped them and used them for bombing a UN vehicle near Shahdara and a rocket attack in the cantonment area.
Hand grenades were thrown on the UN vehicle near Shahdara in February 2004, while a rocket was fired on the Pakistan Army compounds from Arif Jan Road in the cantonment in June 2004.
