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Friday March 29, 2024

Capital police doing letter writing like Baboos, says Supreme Court

By Sohail Khan
August 07, 2020

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Thursday took a strong exception to the performance of Islamabad Police and termed the IGP’s report on abduction of journalist Matiullah Jan “Baboos’ Report”.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed, heard contempt of court case against Matiullah Jan. The court had taken suo motu notice of Matiullah Jan’s defamatory tweets and issued notices to the attorney general, Matiullah Jan and president Supreme Court Bar Association. The court expressed dissatisfaction with the report submitted by the deputy inspector general (operations) on behalf of IGP Islamabad Amir Zulfikar Khan. “Where is the IG Islamabad?” the CJP asked Attorney General Khalid Javed.

Amir Zulfikar Khan came to the rostrum. “IG sahib in which era are you sitting. Your police do not know how to proceed with investigation in a criminal case,” said the CJP. “You have worked like baboos while submitting a report to the court. Don’t you know as to how to collect information,” the CJP kept on asking questions after questions.

The CJP asked about the purpose of letter writing to different departments for collecting information in the instant matter. “Why your men could not collect information in the case?” the CJP further asked the IGP.

The chief justice asked the IGP that he should visit the department and sit there unless complete information was collected on the spot. “The needful could be done in just five minutes, but you will spend five months on completing the investigation,” the CJP remarked and said this culture should end.

“Send the samples to the forensic laboratories and seek a timely report on it instead of waiting for long. IGP sahib your police are doing work like baboos and it should be your responsibility to keep yourself aware of every moment,” the CJP told the IG.

“You don’t even know as to how investigation can be conducted,” the CJP told the IGP adding that until now he had not been able to make a map of the case and just submitted a few lines to the court in the matter. The court asked journalist Matiullah Jan if he had submitted his reply in the contempt case against him. The journalist, however, submitted that as he was extremely engaged in his abduction case during the police investigation, he could not engage his lawyer for submitting his reply.

Matiullah Jan sought some time for submitting his reply. The court accepted his request and directed him to submit reply within four weeks.

As regard the case of abduction of the alleged contemnor, the deputy inspector general (operations) on behalf of Inspector General of Islamabad submitted a report but the instant report was altogether not satisfactory,” the court noted down in the order.

The court noted down that the police were required to obtain information dealing with the criminal offence. “Let a comprehensive reply be submitted by the IGP Islamabad and he should himself supervise the investigation in the matter and ensure completion in time as provided,” the court noted down in its order and adjourned hearing for four weeks.