Police failure to provide security to witnesses irks ATC

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday called comments from the Sindh home secretary and inspector general of police over the status of the witness protection programme in the province, after the police failed to provide security to two private witnesses against suspected Daesh militants who abetted the suicide attack at the shrine of Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in February 2017.

The ATC judge directed the respondents to depute a focal person who should file a report on the implementation of the Witness Protection Security and Benefit Act, 2017, along with recommendations for making the law more effective for “the benefit, security and safety of the witnesses”.

The two witnesses, who don’t live in Karachi, had a month ago sought security from the court after they were issued notices to appear in the trial to depose against the accused, Nadir Ali and Furqan, who allegedly facilitated the suicide bomber who attacked Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan.

At least 82 people, including women and children, were killed and 383 wounded as the bomber struck the shrine during the sunset when the devotees perform Dhamaal. The responsibility of the attack was claimed by Daesh, according to the Independent.

The judge expressed his displeasure at the police performance and dismissed the report submitted by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) DIG to show compliance with the court’s previous orders of providing security to the witnesses.

The judge remarked that the report was only a correspondence from the DIG to the Shikarpur SHO. The judge observed that during the trial for the murder of Advocate Naimat Ali Randhawa, the eyewitnesses had gone into hiding “due to the fear of the demon of terrorism.” He added that the public had become too frightened to assist the legal system in dealing with terrorism cases, which was bringing a bad name to the country.

“Protection and security of the witnesses…does not seem to be at highest priority; witnesses are not being provided protection and security, not to talk of promotion and projection of the witnesses despite enactment of [the law].”

The judge specifically pointed out the section 4 of the Act that was about the witness protection programme which provided for the new identity, accommodation, reasonable financial assistance and compensation to the witnesses in case any harm was done to them.

The judge also directed the home secretary to explain if and under what mechanism any compensation was paid to the victims of the blast. The next hearing of the case will take place on January 20 inside the judicial complex at the Karachi Central Jail.

The ATC had indicted Ali and Furqan as alleged facilitators of the attack in September, 2019. Both the accused were arrested by the CTD. They allegedly worked for the banned Daesh.

According to the investigators, the accused and their absconding accomplices facilitated the attack. They were directed to do so by Mufti Hidayatullah, a chief of Daesh in Pakistan who was reportedly killed by security forces in Kalat in July, 2018.

The charge sheet said Ali did a recce of the shrine for three days and passed on the information to Hidayatullah who then prepared a suicide bomber, identified as Barar Brohi, and sent him along with Ali to Sehwan.