ISLAMABAD: The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, will preside over a special reference in Quetta on Tuesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the August 8 suicide blast which left more than 70 lawyers dead and several others injured.

Organised by the Balochistan Bar Council (BBC), Balochistan High Court Bar Association and Quetta Bar Association, the reference will be attended by CJP Nisar and other senior judges of the apex court, including Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Gulzar Ahmed.

Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court Noor Mohammad Meskanzai, Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court Yahya Afridi, Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) vice chairman Muhammad Ahsan Bhoon, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Rasheed A. Rizvi, lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir and other prominent lawyers are also scheduled to attend the reference.

On Monday, PBC vice chairman and chairman of the executive committee Hafeezur Rehman called for a strike and day of mourning throughout the country on Tuesday to condemn the 2016 attack.

CJP and other senior judges will be attending an event in the city to observe first death anniversary of Aug 8 suicide blast

The PBC has also asked the bar associations and councils to hold condolence references and meetings for those who had lost their lives in the attack.

Advocate Munir Kakar, who is a member of the BBC, told Dawn that none of the assurances given by the federal or provincial government to the victims and their families had been fulfilled.

Referring to the October 2016 meeting with Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri, Mr Kakar said that they had been promised an endowment fund of Rs240 million to set up an education fund for children of the deceased lawyers.

He said that a compensation

of Rs7.5m for 19 critically injured lawyers, Rs3m for 27 lawyers who were wounded and Rs1m for 46 lawyers who suffered minor injuries had also been promised.

Along with these compensations, Mr Kakar said, they had been told that a housing scheme would be launched for families of the deceased lawyers. But nothing had been done in that regard either, he regretted.

Discussing the situation of the Civil Hospital Quetta — where the attack took place — Mr Kakar said that the situation had gone from bad to worse.

Mr Kakar’s sentiments were seconded by former SCBA president and PBC member Kamran Murtaza, who is from Quetta.

According to Mr Murtaza, the situation of the hospital had worsened after the attack. “It is so bad that one can’t even find a ventilator in the hospital’s trauma centre,” he said.

In a follow-up case on July 26, the Supreme Court took up Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s inquiry commission report on the Aug 8 attack and expressed displeasure over the lack of progress in the implementation of the recommendations made by the commission. The court said that it would monitor the implementation of the report itself.

In his report, Justice Isa touched upon the general callous disregard for human life by doctors and paramedics and said that the absence of doctors and other staff of the hospital had contributed to the problems faced by the victims, claiming that some of them could have survived had they received medical treatment on time.

The 110-page report cited testimonies of lawyers to establish that except for a notable exception, doctors and other hospital staff did not render medical assistance to the dead or injured at the blast site.

The hospital’s premises, the report claimed, were unprepared to attend to emergencies which involved a large number of people and only had a couple of stretchers. There were no first-aid kits or bags containing minimal or essential medicines and bandages.

The hospital also lacked firefighting equipment such as fire extinguishers, buckets and blankets, the report said, adding that given the number of attacks in the city the hospital’s lack of preparedness was incomprehensible.

Discussing the doctors and staff, the report said that it looked like they were absent on Aug 8, 2016, without any explanation. The report said that it believed the provincial government had given up its responsibilities and surrendered itself to the dictates of the doctors and paramedics associations operating the hospital.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2017