LAHORE - A two-member bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) sought a report about the judicial probe being carried out into the Sahiwal killings till March 18, the next date of hearing.

The bench headed by LHC Chief Justice Sardar Shameem Khan resumed the hearing of petitions filed by Jalil, the brother of one of the victims Khalil, and Ehtisham, the brother of alleged terrorist Zeeshan Javed, who were killed in Sahiwal in a fake encounter carried out by some officials of Counterterrorism Department (CTD) in Sahiwal.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) head, additional IGP Syed Ejaz Hussain Shah, submitted a report before the LHC bench. The court was informed that six police officials had been held responsible for the killings while Zeeshan has been declared as terrorist in the findings of the report. In this respect, a case has been filed against the accused police officers and a report has been submitted in the trial court.

He further said that a list of 63 witnesses in the case has also been submitted before the trial court. The bench was apprised that the local court of Sahiwal had already summoned the accused on March 7, while judicial inquiry into the carnage was underway so there was no need to establish judicial commission for the purpose.

As per the report, Zeeshan had links with the Islamic State (IS) terrorists many of whom were proclaimed offenders of Red Book.

After hearing the prosecutor, the LHC chief justice said that the judicial inquiry was to be completed within one month till March 14. He then ordered the official to submit a report on the judicial inquiry on the priority basis.

Training course for family and guardian judges

A training course for family and guardian judges started at the Punjab Judicial Academy here on Tuesday.

Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Sardar Shameem Khan addressed the inaugural session. He advised the family judges to extraordinarily discharge their duties. He hoped that the judges would show better performance. He said that the purpose training courses and laws is to provide cheap and immediate justice. For the purpose, they had to utilities their extraordinary capabilities, the chief justice asked the judges.

Despite various steps taken time to time by the Lahore High Court, the family courts backlog is piling up with the passage of time. LHC former chief justice Muhammad Anwarul Haq inaugurated the first-ever evening court of Pakistan in Lahore to deal with family and minors’ custody matters. The evening court was aimed to keep kids from traditional environment of courts where accused involved in heinous nature cases are tried.

The court’s main purpose is to facilitate litigants within available resources as the creation of new courts is a difficult task however the existing courts could be better utilised in double shifts.