KARACHI - The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday issued notices to official respondents on a petition moved by MQM-P challenging an Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notification regarding delimitation for local government constituencies in Sindh.
A two-member SHC bench directed the Sindh Chief Secretary, the provincial election commission, the local government secretary, and the Council of Common Interests (CCI) secretary to furnish their comments on the petition by next hearing on August 26.
MQM-P leaders Amir Khan, Kunwar Naveed Jamil and Wasim Akhtar through their counsel challenged the ECP notification.
They stated that delimitation exclusively fell within the ambit of the ECP, but additional deputy commissioners had been included in committees for delimitation for local government constituencies.
They contended that such a notification was illegal and added the ECP was required to carry out the delimitation after every census results were published officially, but the final result of the 2017 census had not been published.
Honour killing claims two lives in Jacobabad
Two including a woman were killed over honour in Sindh’s district of Jacobabad on Wednesday. According to police, the incident occurred in the limits of Taju Dero PS. The bodies were shifted to a nearby hospital by the rescue teams. On July 25, a man and his wife have been killed at their residence in the name of honour here in Nazimabad area of Karachi. As per details, 50-year-old victim Saleem and his wife Hina were killed by two assailants, identified as brothers of the deceased woman. They had contracted love marriage some time ago.
According to a report, around 769 people including 510 females have been stabbed in the name of honour from 2014 to 2019 in Sindh while 108 women fell victim to it last year.
Police presented charge sheets in 649 cases and the courts awarded sentences to accused in 19 of those cases. Accused in 136 cases have been acquitted and 494 cases are still pending trial.
The conviction rate stood at a mere two per cent against the acquittal rate of 20.9pc.