KARACHI: Legislators from the upper house of parliament on Wednesday recommended a high-powered committee with members from law enforcement and intelligence agencies to trace and identify the “criminal gangs” within the police as their presence in the force often led to episodes like the killing of Naqeeb Ullah Mehsud in a “fake encounter” last month.

Headed by Senator Nasreen Jalil, the Senate’s Functional Committee on Human Rights met here at the Sindh Secretariat with key members of the Sindh cabinet, inspector general of police and members of the rights body before visiting the jirga in Sohrab Goth to express condolence with Naqeeb’s family.

After the daylong exercise, the body “has recommended that there should be a committee to trace and identify criminal gangs within the police,” Ms Jalil told Dawn. “The committee should have members from intelligence agencies and officers from the police.”

She regretted that since there was no mechanism and forum to keep check on police activities, “I personally believe that it’s high time to set up such committee and all the members agreed with that suggestion.”

She said that the functional committee recommended to the government to set up such committees.

Organisers call off jirga of Mehsud tribe after over two weeks

The meeting was attended by Senators Sitara Ayaz, Mir Kabir Ahmad Shahi, Nisar Muhammad Khan, Samina Saeed, Saleh Shah, Shahi Sayed, Nehal Hashmi and Farhatullah Babar.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah also briefly attended the session. Home Minister Sohail Siyal, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, IGP A. D. Khowaja and other senior officials and members of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) were also present.

The committee was briefed about the progress in Naqeeb murder case. The committee expressed grave indignation over the incident and the inability of the agencies concerned to apprehend the absconding police officer Rao Anwar despite the orders of the Supreme Court.

Concerns over protectors of SP Rao

They expressed concern that the failing to apprehend SP Rao gave rise to the question whether he was protected by some influential people.

“The committee we suggested today should be tasked with the job to find out the real force behind the officers like Rao Anwar who are blamed for extrajudicial killings and fake encounters,” Ms Jalil said, adding that the Senate had already prepared several proposals and forwarded them to the quarters concerned for legislation to check “suspicious” activities of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

However, nothing credible was done yet on all those suggestions, she said.

After the meeting, Senator Farhatullah Babar told reporters that the Naqeeb case was an issue of torture and custodial death that must be vigorously pursued and those responsible punished in accordance with the law.

“Over a year ago the Senate unanimously passed a private members bill on torture, custodial death and custodial rape but since it was not passed by the National Assembly within the stipulated period after it’s laying in the assembly it had now been sent to the joint session of the parliament,” he said. “The government should immediately convene joint session of parliament to get this critical legislation passed. If the government does not want to adopt the private bill it should either bring its own bill or adopt the private bill as its own with the permission of the mover.”

During the meeting, the NCHR members briefed the Senate committee about their findings in Naqeeb case and forwarded their suggestions pertaining to criminal justice system and police reforms.

They said that they were currently preparing a detailed and comprehensive report on police reforms by considering various elements of criminal justice system and legal enactments relating to police force and their recommendations to the committee were parts of the same exercise.

“For an independent inquiry regarding extrajudicial killing, corruption, misconduct etc, the government should establish an independent police complaint authority under the leadership of a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge in order to guarantee accountability at all levels of the force. The civil society and non-governmental organisation should play an active role in guaranteeing the independence of all such oversight bodies,” said a separate statement issued by the NCHR about their presentation to the Senate committee.

Mehsud’s jirga at Sohrab Goth ended

Meanwhile, the jirga of the Mehsud and other Pakhtun tribes against Naqeeb’s killing in “fake encounter” was called off after meeting between its organisers and the Senate committee members.

Zafar Mehsud, one of the jirga organisers, told Dawn that they called off jirga after the senators assured them of addressing their legitimate demands soon.

Talking about their demands, he said that their main demand pertained to the arrest of SP Rao and his team. They also put up a demand that the policemen would not conduct raids in civilian dress and in vehicles without number plate and they should also inform police station concerned before detaining any person.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2018