HYDERABAD, Aug 9: The leaders of various civil and political organizations and lawyers on Tuesday appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of mysterious disappearance of political activists and extrajudicial violence.

They were speaking at a seminar on “Mysterious Disappea-rances and Extrajudicial Vio-lence” organized by Sindh Development Society and Actio-naid Pakistan at a local hotel.

Prominent lawyer, Ayaz Latif Palijo, said that the state must take notice of the disappearance of political activists and extrajudicial violence.

MPA Ms Farheen Mughal said that the state had failed to protect the lives of people who were paying it back-breaking taxes. Political activists were disappearing after they refused to toe government’s line, she said adding that there was a deliberate attempt to make issues of non-issues to distract peoples’ attention from real problems.

An NGO leader, Zulfiqar Shah, slammed the kidnapping and disappearance of political activists and said that such extrajudicial methods were not only flagrant violation of human rights but they also tarnished the country’s image.

Ghaffar Malik of Sindh Development Society said that the lawyers could play a positive role in helping stop the extrajudicial methods used by the government to harass and intimidate its opponents.

Fateh Mari of Actionaid Pakistan said that the difference of opinion was the constitutional right of every citizen and urged the enlightened members of the society and political parties to play their role in protecting the right to disagree.

The member of Sindh National Council, Punhal Sario, said that kidnapping of political activists was aimed at spreading anarchy in the country.

The seminar adopted a resolution calling upon the government to reveal the whereabouts of all the political activists who had disappeared over the years.

It appointed a ten-member committee headed by senior lawyer, Yousuf Leghari, to take steps for the recovery of political activists.

The family members of disappeared political activists, Asif Baladi, Manjhi Chandio, Akash Mallah and Chetan Kumar reportedly picked up by law enforcement agencies also attended the seminar.

SU: The University of Sindh completed the first phase of installing and testing its optical fibre network under “Optical Fibre Faculty Tolerant Gigabit Campus Network” on Tuesday.

The Jaffer Brothers handed over the password to the Institute of Information Technology (IIT), University of Sindh, in a ceremony at IIT.

SU Vice-Chancellor Dr Mazharul Haq Siddiqui who was chief guest at the ceremony called it the beginning of a journey on the road to progress and said that with it the university had achieved a landmark.

He directed the IIT to work out a system under the project to provide 24-hour internet service connectivity to students at hostels.

The vice-chancellor distributed appreciation certificates among the staff and stakeholders associated with the project while IIT Director Dr A. W. Ansari highlighted the project’s aims and objectives.

The optical fibre network is aimed at providing online connectivity to the academic and research departments. The network, with 34 nodes of optical fibre connectivity, connects the Allama I I Kazi Campus, Jamshoro, and Elsa Kazi Campus, Hyderabad, through radio modem.