May 9 incident: Punjab govt to appoint 11 special prosecutors to help JITs

LAHORE: The Punjab government has decided to appoint 11 special prosecutors to provide legal support to the joint investigation teams (JITs) formed to probe the cases registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act after the incidents of May 9. These prosecutors are also considered experts in forensics and cybercrimes.

Sources told the reporter these special prosecutors would be paid Rs3 to 5 lakh on a case-to-case basis by the Punjab government. DIG Kamran Adil is the head of the JITs formed to investigate the cases registered in Lahore.

Earlier, the Punjab government had filed 17 intra-court appeals against the release of more than 1,500 leaders and workers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), arrested under 3MPO, and released on the orders of Rawalpindi and Multan benches of the Lahore High Court. According to documents available to the reporter, the appeals had been filed by deputy commissioners of seven districts.

According to the documents, one appeal each by deputy commissioners of Sheikhupura, Faisalabad, Lahore and Sargodha, two each by DCs of Jhang, three each by deputy commissioners of Sialkot and eight intra-court appeals by Wazirabad DC were filed.

It has been pleaded in the appeals that serious legal mistakes had been made while issuing orders for the release of persons arrested under 3MPO. These orders were illegal, misinterpreted the law and ignored the facts.

It has also been pleaded by the Punjab government in the intra-court appeals that the High Court orders to pay expenses to the DCs at the rate of Rs5,000 per person were also not correct in accordance with the law, in which the court exceeded its jurisdiction.

It was also requested that the High Court should examine the criminal conduct, record and reports of the District Intelligence Committees about the arrested persons, including the damages caused by them to the public and private properties.

A divisional bench of LHC, headed by Justice Shehbaz Ali Rizvi, had already nullified the orders regarding the payment of expenses in the intra-court appeals.