The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday fixed for hearing a petition filed by Sahiwal tragedy victim Khalil’s brother Jalil, on February 4. A two-member bench headed by chief justice of the LHC will hear the petition. In the petition, Jalil has pleaded the court to abolish a joint investigation team (JIT) formed to probe the incident as he is not expecting justice from it. The plaintiff has made Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and Punjab Inspector General (IG) Amjad Javed Saleemi parties in the case. Khalil, a resident of Lahore, his wife Nabeela and teenage daughter Areeba were killed in a shady encounter involving the CTD of Punjab Police on a highway in Qadirabad area of Sahiwal district earlier this month. Detained CTD officials on Thursday denied firing shots at Khalil and members of his family who were travelling in a car driven by alleged terrorist Zeeshan. In their statement to the joint investigation team (JIT) probing the incident, the CTD personnel revealed that neither did they open fire at the Sahiwal family nor did anyone give them directives to do so. Responding to a question about how the passengers were killed then, the policemen said they were shot dead by their associates travelling on a motorcycle. Jalil has already refused to appear before the JIT for the identification parade of CTD officials. The identification parade was put off for the third time on Thursday after the main complainant in the case didn’t turn up citing lack of trust on the JIT investigations. Published in Daily Times, February 2nd 2019.