KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday issued a notice to former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf pertaining to the May 12, 2007 carnage in Karachi, DawnNews reported.

The request was forwarded to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in order to form a larger bench for the hearing.

The division bench of SHC comprising Justice Shahid Bajood and Justice Nisar Sheikh heard the case today.

During the hearing, the court ordered to issue a notice to Pervez Musharraf as well as to publish the notice in the British newspapers.

Justice Shahid Anwar, one of the judges on the bench, said that the case was out of the jurisdiction of the two-member bench.  Hence, analysing the importance of the case, a larger bench should be formed in order to deal the case effectively, he added.

The hearing was adjourned till April 3.

On May 12, 2007, over 50 people were killed and more than 100 vehicles torched during a visit by CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry, who had arrived there to address a lawyers’ function in the city.

The CJP, who at that time had been made dysfunctional by military dictator Musharraf, was stranded and later returned from Karachi airport due to the fierce gun battles that broke out on the roads towards the airport.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Tuesday, while briefing the National Assembly on the investigation into former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, had also said that Musharraf would be brought back to the country to face trial.

Malik had said that a number of notices had been served on the former dictator through the high commission in London and now the court would issue red warrants to Interpol to seek his deportation and return to Pakistan.

Musharraf has denied any allegations about his involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

“Benazir did not consider me to be a threat,” Musharraf had said, adding that he was willing to face courts.