UMERKOT: The Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court has suspended superintendent of district and sessions court Umerkot Akbar Ali Rahimoon, and assured a group lawyers that an impartial inquiry against the rest of persons, including district and sessions judge, involved in alledged humiliation and torture of healthcare officials on court premises would be conducted.

Poonjo Mal Bheel, president of Umerkot District Bar Association, told Dawn on phone that SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali Shaikh met a delegation of lawyers, including himself, member of the Sindh Bar Council (SBC) Sher Mohammad Wassan, SBC vice president Qurban Malano and Jai Dev Sharma at his office in Karachi on Saturday and assured them that an impartial inquiry would be launched into the incident.

Two women health officials — a doctor and a lady health visitor — were apparently roughed up a few days ago by police in Umerkot when they refused to visit a judge’s home to treat his son.

Calls for thorough inquiry into incident

The CJ also suspended superintendent of district court Mr Rahimoon and vowed that justice would be served to the victimised women, said Mr Poonjo quoting the chief justice.

He said that they also requested the chief justice to appoint an SHC judge to carry out an impartial inquiry against all the persons involved in the incident, including the district and sessions judge, under whose directions it took place.

He said: “It is the worst act in the history of judiciary that innocent women were brought to court through police, and subjected to humiliation, abuse and torture in the courtroom which is paradoxically the place where justice is administered. The sessions judge involved in this crime against health officials has been running the judiciary like his personal fiefdom”.

Dr Hemji, husband of Dr Kiran Hemji, one of the affected women, thanked the media for standing by them in their time of trial and gave them hope. They wanted impartial inquiry by any judge of SHC because the district and sessions judge was himself involved in the incident.

Lady health visitor Ms Tejan, who was also reportedly humiliated, said that since they were humiliated and faced inhuman attitude in the open court, she had lost her faith in courts of law. The constable who slapped her had not been brought to book and no action had been taken against her yet.

Former joint secretary of DBA Shareef Bheel, who was eyewitness to the incident, told Dawn that when he heard screaming in the courtroom, he rushed there and saw that courtroom was full of onlookers while lady constable Shabana Shaikh was slapping LHV Tejan. Dr Kiran was sobbing and had tears in her eyes as her husband was being dragged out of the courtroom, he said.

Meanwhile, doctors and paramedics boycotted OPD on the second consecutive day and lawyers stopped work at the court on a call of SBC in protest over the incident.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2017