Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali has taken a suo motu notice of the August 8 Quetta carnage, in which at least 73 people, most of them lawyers, were martyred and 104 people injured. The suo motu action was taken under Article 184(3) of the constitution after Supreme Court Registrar Arbab Arif sent separate notes to the chief justice containing details of the incident. The note stated that the Quetta incident had raised many doubts about the state of governance in Balochistan in particular and the country in general. “The way the planned incident took place brings into question the efficacy of the state machinery. Lack of security arrangements, despite past precedent points at the miserable failure of the provincial government and law enforcement agencies to avert the tragic incident,” stated the note written by the SC registrar. The note further said that lack of proper security arrangements by the administration constitutes to violation of the fundamental rights of life and liberty guaranteed under Article 9. “Moreover, insufficient arrangements and medical facilities in the hospital of the provincial headquarter resulted in further loss of life,” the note stated. It said that the injured had to be shifted from the Civil Hospital to the CMH and other hospitals outside the province, adding that the post-disaster scenario was not encouraging either. “It appears that the incident has been forgotten and no headway has been made in either tracing the culprits or to mobilise state resources to prevent such occurrences in [the] future. There is no evidence of any cognisance taken by the provincial government in this regard,” it said.