LAHORE:The Lahore High Court Chief Justice Qasim Khan on Thursday came hard on Punjab police for its highhandedness and illegally involving a woman in a drug case.
He was hearing a bail petition of a woman booked in a drug case. The petitioner’s counsel pleaded that police had registered a case of recovery of 2kg hashish from his client which was fabricated.
“They have paralysed the judicial system, every day three to four cases of police highhandedness surface before the judiciary,” the top judge said. “The rules are not made to protect misdeeds of police,” Justice Qasim Khan said. Referring the arrest of the prime suspect of Lahore Motorway rape case, chief justice said that a statement of the father of Abid Malhi said that he had himself produced his son to the police. But the police high-ups are showering praise on police team appointed for arrest of the suspect and announced reward for them only to show its efficiency.
“They have reached the extreme in their illegal actions across Punjab,” the chief justice remarked. “When a court bailiff raids a police station, they tamper dates showing arrests in previous dates,” Justice Qasim Khan said. “They are doing so because a poor person could not arrange forensic of police computers,” the justice remarked.
“Give me five police stations, all their wrongdoings will surface with forensic test,” the chief justice said. Justice Khan remarked that the court would not leave the IG Punjab, if their ill intentions were proved.
The Justice Khan ordered release of the accused woman on bail subject to furnishing surety bond of Rs100,000. Pakistanis detained in Iran: The Lahore High Court ordered the foreign office to submit a list of Pakistanis imprisoned in Iran. Justice Shahid Waheed was hearing a petition by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) on behalf of the families of the Pakistanis imprisoned in Iran for alleged drug offences. Representing the petition, Barrister Sarah Belal informed the court that according to the government’s reply, there were 174 Pakistanis currently detained in Iran, 75 percent of them on charges of drug-trafficking.
She said, in 2017, Iran passed a law that enabled prisoners sentenced to death for narcotics offences to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. She argued that it was the Pakistan government’s duty under the Constitution to protect its citizens wherever in the world they may be. The counsel stated that Pakistanis in foreign jurisdictions were particularly vulnerable and therefore might not be able to file reviews themselves.