Sialkot District Jail tragedy in 2003: Four victim judges to be given martyr status, says LHC CJ

SIALKOT: Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Mansoor Ali Shah on Tuesday said that four judges, who were killed in the Sialkot District Jail tragedy in 2003, would soon be given the status of martyrs.

Steps would also be taken to ensure provision of justice and all financial benefits to their legal heirs, he announced. He was talking at monument-inaugural ceremony constructed in memory of the killed judges on the premises of the Sialkot district courts.

The chief justice added that all the victims were young, who had joined the judiciary in 2001/02. They sacrificed their lives while discharging their professional duties, he added. He assured the families of victim judges of justice.

He said the bar and the bench were the integral parts of one another and their role in provision of justice to the masses was imperative. He said that he would visit the Sialkot District Bar Association (DBA) in near future.

LHC Registrar Khurshid Anwar Rizvi, Punjab District Judiciary Director General Akmal Khan, District and Sessions Judge (DSJ) Sialkot Malik Ali Zulqarnain, DSJ Narowal Yousaf Aujla, Sialkot DBA president Hafiz Irfanul Haq, secretary Suhail Iqbal Harar, Sialkot DC Dr Farrukh Naveed, DPO Asad Sarfraz and others were also present on the occasion. It is worth mentioning here that four civil judges namely Shahid Munir Ranjha, Sagheer Anwar Chaudhry, Sheharyar Bukhari and Asif Mumtaz Cheema were made hostages by some accused persons during their visit to District Jail Sialkot on July 25, 2003.

Later in the evening, all of them and the accused persons, who had made them hostages, were killed during an operation.