Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Headquarters Inter Services Intelligence

Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Headquarters Inter Services Intelligence alongwith Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Federal Ministers Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Asad Umar and SAPM Dr. Moeed Yousuf. Lieutenant General Faiz Hamid, Director General Inter Services Intelligence received the Prime Minister on his arrival at Headquarters. A comprehensive briefing was given to the Prime Minister encompassing complex regional and domestic challenges with special focus on Pakistan efforts for restoration of peace and stability.

The Prime Minister emphasized that no effort would be spared for national security and sovereignty. Sacrifices and tireless efforts of the Inter Service Intelligence were deeply appreciated by the Prime Minister

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8-year-old girl ‘beaten, killed’ by employers in Rawalpindi over setting free their parrots: FIR

People on Twitter, including politicians, on Wednesday demanded justice for an eight-year-old girl who succumbed to injuries inflicted by her employees ⁠— who allegedly tortured her for accidentally setting their parrots free.

Zahra, who was a domestic worker at a household in Rawalpindi, was brought to the Begum Akhtar Rukhsana Memorial Hospital on Sunday in an injured state by her employer. According to the police, the suspect admitted that he and his wife had beaten Zahra after she let his “expensive pet parrots escape from their cage”.

Zahra succumbed to her injuries soon after she was brought to the hospital and both her employers were arrested the same day. They were remanded into police custody until June 6.

The first information report, that was registered in Rawat police station on behalf of the SHO soon after the victim was brought to the hospital and was still alive, said that she had injuries on her face, hands, below her rib cage and legs. The FIR stated that she also had wounds on her thighs which suggested that she might have been sexually assaulted. Police have sent samples for forensic examination to confirm if an assault took place and are yet to receive a report.ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD

The report was filed under Sections 302 (punishment for qatl-i-amd), 376 (punishment of rape) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Zahra’s body was handed over to her family after a post-mortem examination, which revealed that the victim had died due to her injuries.

The girl hailed from Punjab’s Kot Addu city and was employed by the couple four months ago to take care of their one-year-old child, police said. When employing her, the suspect had promised to provide her an education.

The incident has reignited a discussion over the exploitation of minors and child labour laws in Pakistan.

PPP Senator Sherry Rehman, in response to a tweet, vowed to take the case up, adding that child labour “has to stop”.

Nida Kirmani, a teacher at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, demanded an end to employing children, saying it was “the worst kind of exploitation”.

“It leaves kids vulnerable to abuse. Employ their parents. Support them in going to school. Treat everyone’s children as if they were your own, with kindness & respect. Be a decent human,” she tweeted.

PPP leader Sharmila Faruqi also condemned the incident saying that the “barbarity of this [crime] is sickening”.

The incident comes months after the Supreme Court set aside the extended three-year sentence against former additional district and sessions judge Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife Maheen Zafar, who were convicted for torturing their 10-year-old maid Tayyaba. The case had garnered attention in 2016, when photos of Tayyaba were circulated on social media. The young girl suffered bruises, wounds and burns to her body while employed as domestic help by the additional judge.

Crime meeting chaired by CPO Rawalpindi

Rawalpindi: Crime meeting chaired by CPO Rawalpindi, the participation of police officers from across the district, encouragement of police officers for good performance while severe reprimand for poor performance, uniformity of pending petitions and cases, provision of justice to citizens and taking steps to curb crime. Rawalpindi police’s performance in the fight against coronavirus is commendable, all precautions should be taken while on duty, implementation of all government orders regarding coronavirus should be ensured, according to CPO

A crime meeting was held under the chairmanship of Police Officer Muhammad Ahsan Younis in the conference hall CPO office. In the crime meeting, CPO Rawalpindi Muhammad Ahsan Younis, SSP Investigation Muhammad Faisal, SSP Operations Tariq Wilayat, Divisional SPs, SDPOs The meeting was attended by SHOs from all over the district. The meeting discussed issues related to crime control including challan ratio of cases, pending cases, pending applications, and provision of justice to the citizens. ل Yagia, SP Rawal Division Rai Mazhar Iqbal was awarded an honorary shield for best performance and supervision.

Imran Khan SDP Onyutown and Zulfiqar Ali SDP Ogujar Khan were awarded an honorary shield for high challan ratio in cases. Honorary Shield for Recovery of Stolen Vehicles and Better Challan Ratio, Inspector Mian Imran Abbas SH Ogujar Khan on Arrested Criminals, Inspector Javed Iqbal SH New Town While awarding honorary shields on recovery, while sternly reprimanding the police officers for pending cases, pending applications and poor performance, CPO Rawalpindi said that pending cases should be settled as soon as possible, ensuring justice to the citizens coming to the police station To be clear, CPO Rawalpindi warned the underperforming officers to improve their performance otherwise the group would join us in the upcoming crime meeting in the evening. On the excellent performance of Rawalpindi Police in the fight against the Corona Virus, CPO Ahsan Abbas said that the performance of Rawalpindi Police in the fight against Corona Virus is commendable. Keep in mind your caution while on duty. Ensure the implementation of government orders.

LHC grants Shehbaz Sharif pre-arrest bail in assets beyond means case

A Lahore High Court division bench on Wednesday granted pre-arrest bail to Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif a day after a team of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) raided his Model Town residence to arrest him in cases related to money laundering and assets beyond known sources of income.

Sharif’s legal team had filed the pre-arrest bail petition on June 1, a day before he was required to appear before a combined investigation team of the NAB. However, the bail petition could not be fixed for hearing before the bench yesterday.

Yesterday, for a third time, Shehbaz had refused to appear before NAB, citing health concerns. In a statement submitted to the bureau, he said:

“It has been widely reported in the media that some NAB officials have tested positive for Covid-19.ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD

“Please appreciate [that] I am a cancer survivor and and 69 years old. I have been advised limited exposure on account of the peculiar background of low immunity,” he said.

He added that he was available to answer any queries by the investigation team via Skype.

After he did not appear for the NAB hearing, a team of officials from the watchdog and police raided the PML-N president’s residence in Lahore’s Model Town to arrest him but left on learning that he was not present there.

If Sharif is arrested by the NAB before the hearing, the bail petition would stand infructuous.

Petitions request LHC to allow Sharif to reach court

Earlier on Wednesday, vice-chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) Abid Saqi and Lahore High Court Bar Association Secretary Haroon Dogal submitted a petition requesting the Lahore High Court to grant Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif permission to reach the court.

The petition stated that police have “set up obstacles” on the way to the court to prevent [Shehbaz from reaching it].

Shehbaz Sharif submitted a petition for pre-arrest bail in the LHC two days ago and reaching the court [for it] is his legal right, the petitioners said.

A similar petition was also filed by Azam Nazeer Tarar, a member of the PBC.

Police deployment violation of the law: Rana Sanullah

PML-N leaders including Rana Sanaullah, Marriyum Aurangzeb and former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi reached the court premises ahead of the hearing. Party spokeswoman Marriyum Aurangzeb, speaking to reporters outside the LHC, said that an “anti-people and thieving government” had been imposed upon the people.

“The person who shut the country from atop a container has frozen the entire country,” she added.

Rana Sanaullah said that Shehbaz was a “patriotic citizen and wants to get bail which is his legal right”.

He said that the deploying of heavy contingent of police outside the high court premises was a “complete violation of the law”.

Govt counsel files ‘missing’ paper in Justice Isa case

ISLAMABAD: Former law minister Dr Farogh Nasim surprised the Supreme Court on Tuesday by presenting a document on the basis of which the entire presidential reference on misconduct was moved against Justice Qazi Faez Isa but it was available neither in the reference nor with the apex court.

And this is the same document the absence of which had made the petitioner’s side clamour for months to attribute malice on the part of the federal government to Justice Isa, a judge of the Supreme Court.

Dr Nasim shifted the entire burden on former attorney general Anwar Mansoor, saying it might be the oversight of his office not to place the document on record. He explained that he had been engaged by the federal government at the fag end of last week and when he went through the case he had to ask for the document.

Dr Nasim was defending the federal government before a 10-judge full court hearing a set of petitions challenging the filing of presidential reference against Justice Isa.ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD

Minister-turned-lawyer Farogh Nasim told to satisfy apex court on illegal collection of evidence against Justice Faez Isa

When Dawn approached ex-AG Anwar Mansoor for comments, he said he would not make any at this point.

The purported document presumably is a piece of evidence that journalist Abdul Waheed Dogar had supposedly annexed along with his April 10, 2019 complaint filed with the Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) showing the United Kingdom’s land registry of the offshore properties believed to be owned by the wife and children of Justice Isa.

Justice Isa’s counsel Muneer A. Malik, who was connected from the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry via video link, objected by saying that the petitioner’s side still did not have the copy of the document.

It was argued at length that no such document was available in support of Mr Dogar’s claim, but no one from the government’s side had ever come to deny it, Justice Maqbool Baqar recalled. The judge highlighted that the entire proceedings in the Justice Isa case were widely covered by the media and, therefore, the federal government must have known about the discrepancy but none came forward to explain it.

Advocate Malik spent two days only to highlight that this document, if made available, would show the basis on which the entire reference was made, recalled Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, adding that the counsel had made “us learn by heart about the procedure for collecting the property documents from the UK”.

He also recalled that even the former AG was not aware of this document when asked by the court and not even Dr Nasim who was present on some hearing dates. “Certainly, the federal government is at fault,” Justice Shah observed.

Advocate Iftikhar Gillani, representing the Peshawar High Court Bar Association, objected to presentation of the document at this stage, recalling that “we were begging for the document but it was not provided; therefore, it should not be looked at now”.

Justice Bandial, however, suggested to Dr Nasim to satisfy the court, when he would resume his arguments on Wednesday, whether a document retrieved or collected through illegal means could be relied upon and why the complaint was sent directly to the ARU and not to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

The answers to these questions were necessary since “we have reached a critical point of malice as allegations were made that the documents were collected illegally”, Justice Bandial observed. He said the counsel had to paint a clear picture before the court as to why the ARU was approached when the government could have approached the president by following a particular path for sending the reference to the SJC.

Justice Baqar asked Dr Nasim what were the consequences if a proper course was not adopted in the collection of the document.

Dr Nasim described these questions as bullseye to reach a final conclusion. He will answer these questions on Wednesday.

At the outset of the hearing, Muneer Malik objected to the appearance of Dr Nasim on behalf of the federal government and argued that it was a settled law in the Rashid Ahmed case that the AG office had to issue a certificate in case a private counsel was engaged by the government to defend it before the apex court.

Dr Nasim explained that the certificate had been issued by the AG office and, therefore, the requirement of the judgement stood fully complied.

Justice Bandial observed that the federal government had the right to be represented and the fundamental thing was that when the incumbent AG had expressed his inability to appear on behalf of the government, the latter had to engage a private counsel.

Referring to Monday’s objection by Justice Isa to the appointment of Dr Nasim, Justice Bandial observed that the court deserved a sound and proper assistance to reach a conclusion. “The court has to break for the summer vacation in June and it is our intention to conclude before it,” he said, adding that this would only lower the level of debate if the counsel went into the nitty-gritty of the fresh application.

“I will ask you not to press the application or we will pass an order,” Justice Bandial observed while pointing towards Advocate Malik.

Mr Malik contended that the entire case was about transparency and accountability and for the last nine months the eyes of the people had been focused on this court. “Therefore, we need to follow the settled laws,” he said, emphasising that the government, along with the AG certification, also needed to furnish the sanction for engaging a private counsel.

Justice Bandial asked Dr Nasim to place on record the certificate and the court would take a decision on it later.

Dr Nasim argued that it was an admitted fact that Justice Isa’s family owed three offshore properties and that a judge stood guilty of misconduct if he could not prove ‘money trail’ for acquisition of the properties in the name of his wife and children. It becomes essential for the judge, who stands at the highest pedestal, to prove the money trail for purchasing properties since the proximity between the husband and wife was very close.

At this, Justice Mansoor Ali asked why the counsel had jumped to the conclusion that the properties were owned by the judge, also wondering whether he had to explain all the time in case his children acquired a property in their own right.

Dr Nasim contended that the burden was not on him rather on the judge to prove the source of properties acquired in the name of wife and children since the judge should be blameless.

Justice Bandial wondered from where this presumption had emerged that the properties belonged to the judge, especially when his wife was regularly paying income tax and children were old enough to live independently.

The counsel argued that when the SJC had already issued a show-cause notice to Justice Isa who had also filed a reply to it, the bar under Article 211 came in and no court could interfere in the SJC proceedings.

Justice Muneeb Akhtar observed that the counsel seemed to be deviating from the earlier stand of misconduct taken in the reference by arguing on the money trial and source of the properties.

When Justice Akhtar asked whether the counsel had charged his professional fees, the latter replied in the negative.

Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed asked why the government was curious about the property of the judge, wondering whether it would not militate against the independence of the judge if the entire onus was left at his shoulder to prove his innocence.