KARACHI, Sept 21: While the Pakistan People’s Party is enjoying absolute power at the centre as well as in Sindh, its leadership seems to be uninterested in setting up another inquiry tribunal to investigate the October 18, 2007 Karsaz blasts, which targeted slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming rally.
After ending her self-imposed exile, Ms Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi on December 27 last year, had landed at the Karachi airport on Oct 18, where she was received by a large number of her party workers and supporters. However, when her homecoming procession reached the Karsaz area, two suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing more than 150 people. Ms Bhutto had survived the attack.
At that time, the Sindh government, led by then chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, constituted an inquiry tribunal to investigate the Karsaz blasts. The tribunal, headed by retired Justice Dr Ghous Mohammad, started proceedings and recorded the statements of 40 witnesses. However, terming it mere eyewash, the PPP refused to recognise the tribunal and filed a petition in the Sindh High Court against it. Later, the PPP formed the government in the province, and on the order of Home Minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza the home department disbanded the tribunal.
On April 6 Dr Mirza, who was the then chief security adviser of Ms Bhutto, had told reporters that the Sindh government would constitute a fresh tribunal to probe the Karsaz blasts. However, despite the passage of about five months since this claim, the Sindh home department has not constituted a tribunal to inquire into the tragedy.
The terms of reference of the defunct Karsaz tribunal were to probe and ascertain the circumstances and causes leading to the twin blasts at the PPP rally; to examine the security arrangements made by the administration and organisers; to find out negligence and lapse on part of the law-enforcement agencies as well as organisers of the rally; to fix the responsibility against the persons/groups involvement in the incident and to suggest effective measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future.
No headway
Well-placed sources told Dawn that police and other intelligence agencies had failed to make any headway in the investigation of the Karsaz blasts while the PPP seemed less interested in reopening the investigation of the case.
Also, in June, former Sindh police chief Dr Shoaib Suddle had constituted an inquiry committee to probe the Oct 18 Karsaz blasts. However, the committee has not yet initiated the probe.
“We have not received any special directives from the home minister to speed up the investigation of the Karsaz blasts,” said a senior police officer asking not to be named. “So far, it is a blind case and, honestly, we are clueless about it.”
The sources said that due to the lack of political will, the whole issue had been neglected and the perpetrators of the blasts were still at large.
It has been argued by some that if the PPP were sincere in the probe, it would reconstitute the tribunal and allow it to reach a conclusion in accordance with the terms of reference.
“If the PPP had reservations on the tribunal chief, Dr Ghous Mohammad, then it could appoint a three-member tribunal to probe the matter and start the proceedings from the point where they were at the time of dissolution of the first tribunal, because it had examined 40 witnesses who had testified on oath,” said a source.
‘Security flaws’
“The proceedings of the Karsaz tribunal had highlighted several flaws in the security arrangements for Ms Bhutto’s homecoming procession. The flaws were on part of both the law-enforcement agencies and the organisers,” he said, adding that probably, the PPP had disbanded the tribunal and was reluctant to re-establish it owing to the fact that it did not want to accept the responsibility of any security lapse on its part.
On condition of anonymity, a PPP leader told Dawn that the party had already requested the United Nations to investigate the Dec 27 killing of Ms Bhutto and when the UN team would start its investigation, it would definitely cover the Oct 18 Karsaz blasts because the two attacks were inter-related.
Home Minister Dr Mirza was not available for comment. However, sources in the home department said a notification about re-establishing the Karsaz tribunal could only be issued with the permission of the Sindh government and the home minister. “So far we have no instructions in this regard,” said a senior official.
When the chief of the disbanded tribunal, Dr Ghous Mohammad, was approached for comments, he simply replied that he would not make any comment on the dissolution of the tribunal, but added: “Forty witnesses had testified and the record is with the home department.”
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.