Daily Times

Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday ordered the authorities to take the charge of Sindh IG from Kamran Afzal and give it to a competent officer. The order came during the hearing of Dua Zehra case, the teenager who left her home in April this year and reportedly ‘married of free will’.

During the hearing on Monday, Justice Iqbal Kalhoro heard the abduction case filed by Dua’s parents. The judge expressed displeasure over the police’s failure to produce Dua Zehra before the court. He remarked that the fact that police and agencies have failed to find a girl indicates their poor performance. The advocate general told the court that there were credible reports of Dua Zehra’s presence in the Hazara Division. Justice Agha Faisal questioned, “the girl has left your province, what are the law enforcement agencies doing?”

The court remarked that the report IG Sindh Kamran Afzal has submitted is unrealistic and rejected it. It ordered the Establishment Division to hand over the charge of Sindh IG to a competent officer.

The court also seeks the opinion of the division on Kamran Afzal if he is capable or not. The court has issued a written order federal government, attorney general and Sindh chief secretary. It is worth mentioning that on May 18, the Sindh government had given additional charge of the Sindh IG post to Additional IG Dr Kamran Fazal – an officer of the Police Service of Pakistan (BS-21) – after sacking Mushtaq Mahar from the post.

“In a manifest demonstration of such callous conduct, the court directed the IG Sindh to intervene and recover the child. On 24.05.2022, the IG appeared in court and submitted a rather fanciful story that a mobile signal, allegedly of one of the abductors, was being monitored across the length and breadth of the country, traversing through Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Kashmir, however, other than that no effort whatsoever was taken to find/recover the child,” the court order read. It further noted that despite it being apparent that no serious effort had been expended to recover the child, this court exercised restraint and accepted the IG’s undertaking that the child would be recovered before the next date. “It remains our tentative assessment that the IG Police, Kamran Fazal, remains unwilling to perform his duty, despite repeated direct orders,” it noted. The court asked Fazal for an explanation on why the proceeding may not be initiated. The SHC also directed Fazal to appear before the court in person along with his affidavit at the next hearing.

“In so far as his ability to perform his duty is concerned, we feel it’s prudent to defer the said issue for due consideration to the executive. The Secretary Establishment Division is directed to immediately look into this matter and form an opinion, within a reasonable time, as to whether there ought to be an inquiry to determine whether Kamran Fazal is fit to hold a position of responsibility concerned with the lives and liberty of citizens,” the order sheet read. Meanwhile, the court said that the present role/charge of the IG Sindh may be assigned forthwith to an “efficient” officer and the officer would be conveyed the court’s directions to produce the missing child on the next date of hearing.

Meanwhile, the SHC ordered that Nimra Kazmi – the teenage girl who was allegedly kidnapped in Karachi last month and later surfaced in Punjab – be sent to a shelter home and a medical test be carried out to determine her age. The order was issued after a two-member high court bench comprising Justice Agha Faisal and Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro heard petitions for the recovery of Nimra and Dua Zehra, the latter of whom had also gone missing last month from Karachi and later turned up in Punjab.