The Supreme Court (SC) ordered the interior secretary on Tuesday to register an FIR today of the October 23 brutal killing of senior journalist Arshad Sharif. The directives got here after Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial took suo motu observe of the incident.
Earlier nowadays, notices were issued to Foreign Affairs Secretary Asad Majeed, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Shahera Shahid, Federal Investigation Agency Director General (DG) Mohsin Butt, DG Intelligence Bureau, the indoors secretary and president of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) Afzal Butt.
Headed by means of CJ Bandial, a 5-member bench presided over the complaints these days.
During the listening to, Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan requested the interior secretary whether it became genuine that an FIR had no longer been registered in both Pakistan or Kenya. The court docket was then knowledgeable that the government become “watching for the fact-locating committee’s record to register an FIR”.CJ Bandial observed that “it has been some time because the reality-locating committee again” from Kenya as he inquired why the record had “not yet been obtained with the aid of the SC”.
Additional Attorney General (AAG) Chaudhary Amir Rehman explained to the court that Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah had been in Faisalabad all through the weekend whereas the report was received on Friday nighttime. He informed the bench that “the record will be submitted after he sees it”.
“Does the indoors minister need to adjust the document?” CJ Bandial retorted, calling for the minister to seem earlier than the court “proper now”.
“There is an ongoing debate on social media,” the decide delivered, “fingers are being pointed at such a lot of”.
However, the AAG stated that the prime minister and law minister have been also yet to see the record.“Everyone has the right to access the investigation report,” the judge replied, adding that “investigation is the authorities’s responsibility, no longer the courtroom’s”.
“A journalist become murdered,” the CJ brought, “who killed him need to be introduced to light”.
Upon the AAG’s guarantee of the document’s submission “by means of day after today” the court docket ordered that “it must be submitted today so that [the matter] may be heard the following day”.
“We were waiting for 43 days for the record,” CJ Bandial introduced, watching that thus far most effective Sharif’s scientific report had been submitted, which the courtroom also deemed “unsatisfactory” and that the court docket was “taking the difficulty very severely”.
“A 5-member bench has been constituted retaining in view the load of the state of affairs,” the choose stated. “Mistreatment of newshounds will no longer be tolerated underneath any circumstances”, he said, including that if reporters make contributions to false reporting then the government ought to “introduce laws to punish them”.
“Is an investigation taking vicinity in Kenya?” Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar inquired.Admitting the “suspicious occasions” beneath which the journalist changed into murdered, Justice Ijazul Ahsan additionally inquired “what movement has the overseas ministry taken to this point”.
Upon this the overseas secretary knowledgeable the court docket that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had spoken to the Kenyan president and that the Pakistani excessive commissioner in Kenya was in contact with the relevant authorities. However, he said that the development made within the investigation turned into now not yet recognised.
