QUETTA: A judicial tribunal has ordered the inspectors-general of the Frontier Corps and Balochistan police to suspend all personnel involved in the killing of five Chechens from active duty.
In a session on Saturday, the tribunal, headed by Justice Mohammad Hashim Kakar of the Balochistan High Court (BHC), also barred them from transferring any official involved in the incident until the conclusion of the inquiry.The orders were issued following growing questions regarding the uninterrupted service of the FC and police personnel involved in the incident, which many are terming an extrajudicial killing.
Five Chechens, who law-enforcers say they suspected of being terrorists, were gunned down by FC and police personnel in broad daylight.
It later transpired that not only were the five suspects unarmed, but, according to eyewitnesses, they were also willing to surrender.
A judicial probe was later ordered into the incident.
Interestingly, the Superintendent of Police, Naveed Atif, who was SP Airport Circle at the time of the Kharotabad incident, and in whose jurisdiction the incident occurred, was promoted to BPS-18. The police also intended to “transfer” DSP Airport police station Arbab Asif, but the police were stopped just in time by the authorities concerned.
There is also no report regarding the transfer of the SP after the tribunal directive.
Other issues
After reports appeared in the local media that corpses of the Chechen victims, which are being kept in the Bolan Medical Complex’s morgue, were fast decomposing because of “poor cooling system”, the tribunal asked the hospital’s medical superintendent to ensure proper air-conditioning units immediately to prevent the bodies from becoming decomposed.
However, BMC superintendent Dr Baqar Shah said that there was nothing wrong with the cooling units.
“Prolonged power outages are affecting their performance. There are power cuts lasting between four and six hours, which raises the temperature inside the morgue,” he told The Express Tribune.
Quetta is currently experiencing eight to 10-hour-long power cuts and hospitals are not immune from “scheduled loadshedding”. Officials said that no one had so far come forward to claim the bodies.
Sources in the provincial government said that the Russian government had sought access to passports and the inquiry report via the Foreign Office.
They said that copies of the deceased’s passports had been dispatched a few days ago and the government will send the inquiry report after the judicial tribunal finalises its findings. The tribunal will start formal hearing from May 31.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 29th, 2011.