SHC orders effective action to remove billboards from public properties

The Sindh High Court on Wednesday ordered effective action against billboards and hoardings installed at public properties in Karachi.

A division bench, headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, directed the Sindh government, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, cantonment boards and other land-owning agencies to submit their compliance report by November 15.

The high court observed that it will pass appropriate orders against officials who are found involved in allowing such billboards on public properties in the metropolis. It also observed that the Nazir of the court can be appointed to examine the government functionaries’ actions against illegal billboards and hoardings.

The high court had earlier directed the federal and provincial governments to ensure that billboards and advertisement hoardings were removed from and no longer put up on public properties, including footpaths, islands in the centre of roads, overhead bridges and roundabouts, within the jurisdictions of the cantonment boards and civil areas.

A division bench, comprising Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan, had observed that billboards and hoardings were seen across the city on public properties in serious contempt of a Supreme Court order.

6,000 Sindh cops

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) opposition leader in the provincial assembly on Wednesday challenged the deployment of 6,000 police officials of Sindh in Islamabad to stop the party’s long march.

Filing a petition in the Sindh High Court (SHC), Haleem Adil Sheikh said the provincial government has sent 6,000 cops to Islamabad on the request of the federal government

to stop the participants of the PTI’s long march scheduled to start on Friday (tomorrow).

Sheikh said the Election Commission of Pakistan had postponed the local government polls in Karachi and Hyderabad due to a lack of police officials who were reportedly engaged in the flood-affected areas of the province.

He said that on the one hand the government is claiming that the police are engaged in the flood-affected areas and the LG elections cannot be held, but on the other, it has sent 6,000 cops to Islamabad to prevent the PTI’s long march.

Moreover, he added, Karachi has been facing the worst law and order situation, with hundreds of citizens being robbed or killed in street crime, which is yet to be controlled.

He also said the police force is needed at the police stations of Karachi to stop street crime and in the flood-affected areas of the province, rather than in Islamabad to stop the PTI’s long march.

The PTI leader said the government’s decision to send 6,000 cops to the capital only to stop a political long march is unjust and unlawful because the police are needed at police stations and in the flood-affected areas.

He requested the court to direct the Sindh government to call back the 6,000 police officials from Islamabad and ensure their deployment at the police stations of Karachi and in the flood-affected areas of the province to help the local administration.