KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed an additional secretary of forest department to appear on next hearing after forest authorities failed to file comments regarding protection of mangroves in Bundal and Buddo islands along the Karachi coast.

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar also asked the forest department secretary to ensure presence of the additional secretary on Aug 12.

At the outset of the hearing, the assistant advocate general informed the bench that despite many correspondences to the department concerned, they had failed to file comments while the representatives of the department were also absent.

The bench issued a notice to the forest secretary with direction to ensure that the additional secretary must be in attendance along with comments at the next hearing.

It also issued a directive to provide a copy of this order to the Sindh chief secretary for compliance.

Initially, a set of petitions had been filed challenging the vires of Pakistan Islands Development Authority Ordinance. Later, the petitioners said they did not want to press the clauses of their petitions regarding the ordinance in view of the statement made by the additional attorney general that it had been repealed by efflux of time.

But, they said, the petitions also contained prayer clauses about protection of mangroves of Bundal and Buddo and sought directives for respondents.

Witness against Uzair Baloch

An antiterrorism court has expressed its resentment over prosecution’s failure to examine a key witness in three cases pending a trial against alleged Lyari gang warfare character Uzair Baloch and directed the prosecutor general to ensure that the witness was examined at the next hearing.

The ATC-XVI judge noted that a judicial magistrate, who recorded the confessional statement of Uzair and the last prosecution witness to be examined in these cases, had appeared before it for five times to record his testimony but prosecution had failed to examine him over unavailability of an envelope containing the memo of the confessional statement.

The court deplored that the prosecution did not have the key documents in its possession and such weakness on its part was delaying the trial.

The judge directed the prosecutor general to ensure that the judicial magistrate along with the required documents was produced at the next hearing to record his evidence.

It also asked the prosecutor general to either appear personally or depute any other senior prosecutor to appear at the next hearing to support the already notified prosecutor in these cases and assist the court as to why the court should not close the side of prosecution over its repeated failure to examine the last material witness.

The court is trying the alleged Lyari gangster and others in three cases, including murder and possession of explosives and illegal weapons, registered in 2013 at the Pak Colony police station.

Uzair Ali, alias Uzair Jan Baloch, who is facing multiple cases including murder of his arch-rival Arshad Pappu, was kept in 90-day preventive detention by Rangers and then the Rangers handed him over to police following his mysterious arrest in January 2016.

Before his arrest Uzair, once known for his loyalty to the Pakistan Peoples Party and close contacts with its certain leaders, was declared proclaimed offender in over 40 cases pending before ATCs. He has so far been acquitted in a number of such cases. However, a military court had sentenced him to 12 years in prison for his involvement in espionage activities and working for foreign intelligence agencies.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2021