RAWALPINDI: Like other districts of Punjab, the special court in Rawalpindi established under the Protection of Pakistan Act (PoPA) has beginning to lose their significance due to the lack of professional necessities and non-deployment of judicial staff. The prosecutor, readers, stenos, court clerks, record keepers, naib qasids and peons could not be inducted in these PoPA courts in Rawalpindi district as these special courts began functioning almost seven months ago due to which the cases that are under hearing are laying pending since long. The two most important nature of the cases regarding the suicide attack on the house of former provincial minister Col (r) Shuja Khanzada and abduction case of Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Rana Jameel are under proceedings. Although the challans were presented in the courts on March 3rd and 6th respectively but the hearing of both the main cases could not be kicked off due to the shortage of staff. Under the Protection of Pakistan Act, the special courts were set up in five districts of the country including Rawalpindi and Lahore in September, 2015. The duty of these courts was to hear the cases registered under PoPA in 16 districts of Punjab. The investigations of these cases were to be completed through Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), which has been held responsible for presenting challans in these special courts. The case of kidnapping of MPA Rana Jameel for ransom was registered in January 2014 by CTD Sargodha under the Protection of Pakistan Act and Anti-Terrorism Act against five nominated accused including Zafar Ali, Muzaffar Khan, Muhammad Ibrahim, Shakil Ahmed and Kashif Ahmed who are the residents of Mardan, who released MPA after receiving hefty ransom . In September, 2015, a special court in Rawalpindi was established and the case was transferred here. However, CTD presented the challan of the case just one month ago on which special court’s Judge Muhammad Mohsin Raza Khan has adjourned the hearing without handing over the copies of challan to the accused. Similarly, civil judge has transferred the case of killing of Col (r) Shuja Khanzada and 18 others including DSP of Attock circle through suicide bomb blast at his home in his Village Shadi Khan near Attock to PoPA special court. The hearing date of the Khanzada’s case was April 7th but the court has adjourned it till April 21st without any proceedings. The sources told Daily Times that the special court Judge Muhammad Mohsin Raza Khan has sent a letter to federal secretary for Law and Human Rights in which he mentioned that after the establishment of special court under National Action Plan (NAP), the appointment of staff could not be made so far, which is a question mark on the judicial system. In the letter, he said that due to acute shortage of judicial staff, he is facing a lot of problems in registering and hearing the key cases so the staff should be appointed and assigned without any further delay so that timely dispensation of the justice should be carried out.