Senate Body seeks final report on Sahiwal incident

25 Jan, 2019

Chairing a meeting in Parliament House here, Rehman Malik said a comprehensive report of the tragic incident must be submitted to the Body which would be examined in detail.

The meeting was also attended by Senators Azam Khan Swati, Waseem Shehzad, Kalsoom Parveen and Asad Junejo, Home Secretary Punjab, Inspector General (IGP) of Police, Punjab and other senior police officers who briefed the Committee on the event.

Rehman Malik said Upper House had directed the Senate Standing Committee on Interior to immediately conduct an inquiry of Sahiwal incident and submit its report within one week to the Parliament.

The Chairman Senate in a ruling had directed the Committee to fix responsibility, suggest plan to check such incidents in future and plan to look after children of victim family of Sahiwal incident.

Rehman Malik said Islam equates unjustified killing of one person with killing of entire humanity and added three family members were shot dead by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Sahiwal.

He was of the view that the police cannot be given license to kill and even if there was evidence against them, the committee must be given reason for them not be arrested instead.

"It is alarming situation that how lawlessly unarmed civilians were killed in day light by Punjab Police on main highway in front of dozens citizens around," he said.

Terming the Sahiwal incident as painful, he said the Standing Body had asked 42 questions from Ministry of Interior and government of Punjab, out of which some were answered in writing.

Senator Malik asked IGP Punjab to submit written reply of remaining questions to the Committee at the earliest.

"We are trying to ascertain whether there was any conspiracy behind Sahiwal incident," he maintained.

The meeting said sacrifices of our Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in war against terrorism are commendable but no one is allowed to kill anyone.

During the briefing, Home Secretary informed the Committee that no doubt Zeeshan was a terrorist and he was on CTD's target.

The IGP said Zeeshan was member of a very dangerous group to which CTD was chasing and added some members of the group have been killed while some of them were arrested.

Rehman Malik said in case Zeeshan was a terrorist, evidences must be submitted to the Committee.

The Committee would prepare recommendations so as to curb such incidents in future, he added.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2019

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