May12: Nine years on, victims yet to get justice

Karachi: With the May 12 incident completing nine years today, not even a single perpetrator of the brutal violence that brought the city to a standstill on the ill-fated day, was held accountable till yet.

As was the practice, the Sindh Bar Council and other lawyers’ bodies, a ‘black day’ would be observed to demand a judicial inquiry into the incident, arrests of culprits and holding them accountable for their offences. Lawyers would not attend court hearings scheduled for the day while a black flag would be hoisted atop the high court’s building in a bid to protest against the government’s failure to arrest the offenders.

The incident

Over 50 people were killed while scores were injured when activists of a political party had stopped the then deposed chief justice of the apex court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had just landed in Karachi, from exiting the airport. He was to go to the Sindh High Court to address an event organised as part of a movement initiated to restore the judiciary – suspended by then dictator and president General Pervez Musharraf in March 2007.

The SHC later took a suo moto notice regarding siege of the high court and city court’s buildings by mobs, and also heard identical petitions seeking a probe into the May 12 mayhem.

The cases were initially heard by a seven-member bench of the SHC but due to imposition of an emergency and a provisional constitutional order (PCO), the bench could not conclude the suo moto proceedings.

A new five-member bench of SHC was then constituted which dismissed the proceedings and declined to interfere in the matter.

The bench had observed that the petition seeking an open ended inquiry into the incident would not be permissible as per the Constitution, and that the court should not interfere in the case, but could only hope that all stakeholders would in future discharge their respective duties with due care and responsibility, keeping the interest of the country above everything else.

Furthermore, the bench observed that a few people may not agree with the bench’ decision and they had every right to register their grievances provided that the interest of the country was kept in consideration.  The court had noted that, ‘the atmosphere on May 12 was highly charged and despite barriers having been placed, mobs managed to come between a cross fire which resulted in injuries and causalities.’ 

The order further read, “The court under article 199 cannot assume the role of an investigator except issue directions to expedite investigations and proceed in accordance with law.”

Around 80 FIRs were registered in the aftermath of the violence. 

The court had also dismissed objections raised by the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) claiming that the previous seven-member bench was the only competent authority to hear and adjudicate on the proceedings. 

The five-member bench comprised of then chief justice SHC Mohammad Afzal Soomro, Justice Munib Ahmed Khan, Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, Justice Abdur Rehman Farooq Pirzada and Justice Dr Rana Mohammad Shamim. 

The suo motu action was taken on a report registered by in-charge registrar of SHC. 

The petition was restored on October 18, 2011, when petitioner Iqbal Kazmi, who had earlier withdrawn his petition on November 19, 2007, approached the court again after the restoration of the pre-November 3, 2007 judiciary.