KARACHI, Aug 15: A Sindh High Court inquiry tribunal entrusted with the task of investigating the April 9, 2008 violence in Karachi is set to resume hearing on Saturday despite the fact that its repeated requests to members of the public for evidence and relevant information seems to have gone unheeded.

At least 10 people lost their lives – including six those who were burnt to death in an arson attack on Tahir Plaza on M.A. Jinnah Road – when violence erupted in the city following the manhandling of former federal minister Dr Afgan Khan Niazi in Lahore.

A senior official said Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui would preside over the tribunal proceedings, which was established in June by the Sindh government with terms of reference to find out reasons and people behind the widespread violence in the city which also damaged public and private property and witnessed some 40 vehicles being set on fire.

“On behalf of the tribunal, we published advertisements or public messages in local dailies twice, asking people to come up with facts, evidence and information about the incidents of violence on that particular day which may help the tribunal in investigations,” said Farid Anwar Qazi, the registrar of the tribunal.

“But we have not received any evidence from any side; neither has any person come up to help in the investigations. The tribunal will, however, proceed to record statements of witnesses and officials concerned.”

He said advertisements were published twice in a week in each daily of three different languages – English, Urdu and Sindhi – but they went unheeded. However, the official said such a lukewarm public response would not affect the tribunal proceedings in any way.

The tribunal set up in June was initially asked to come up with a report within two weeks but it took more than a month to fix the first hearing on August 6.

The move to initiate a judicial inquiry into the April 9 violence came from the Pakistan People’s Party-led provincial administration after more than two months of the incident and drew serious criticism from political quarters and the legal fraternity.

In its first hearing, the tribunal issued a letter to the provincial law secretary for the deputation of a Sindh additional advocate-general for assistance. It also asked the capital city police officer for the deputation of police officers for assistance to the tribunal and to submit relevant papers.

“Both the officers have been appointed to assist the tribunal,” said an official.

“Additional advocate-general Sarwar Khan and SSP Investigations of South-II Niaz Khoso will be there in line with the requirements of the tribunal.”

However, he did not comment on the two-week time period originally assigned by the government to the tribunal to complete the task. He said the tribunal would continue its proceedings until it reached the satisfactory level of investigations.

While the officials appeared confident about the April 9 probe to be completed within the shortest possible time, the legal fraternity cleaved to the view that the tribunal headed by a “PCO judge” would be unacceptable.

“The legal fraternity does not accept the judges who took an oath under the Provisional Constitution Order 2007. Nor does it believe in the findings of a tribunal headed by one such judge,” said Karachi Bar Association President Mahmoodul Hasan.He said lawyers had asked the provincial government to appoint such a judge who was not part of the existing judiciary to establish transparency about the proceedings of the tribunal.

“We are hopeful about the restoration of the judiciary to its November 2, 2007 position and after that we expect that the matter (April 9 probe) would be taken up by the free and independent judiciary.”