SUKKUR: A district and sessions court in Sukkur has summoned the top officials, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, over loss of Pakistani lives in migrant boat capsizing incidents off Greece coast last month.
During the hearing, the additional session judge-II issued notices to PM Shehbaz, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, directing them to appear before the court on January 15.
The petitioner, in an application, claimed that the unemployed Pakistanis were "poised to leave the country due to the government's negligence. "The government writ has ended as 75 Pakistanis lost their lives in the incidents," it added.
The petitioner asked the court to issue directives for the registration of a case against government officials at Rohri police station. The development came as more than 80 Pakistanis had drowned after boats carrying them capsized near Greece on the night between December 13 and 14.
Although, as many as 36 Pakistani citizens were rescued, the rest still remain missing which, as per a report from the Pakistani Embassy, should be presumed dead. The boats, which departed from Libya's Tobruk port also carried Bangladeshi, Egyptian and Sudanese nationals.
Earlier on January 1, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said the bodies of four more Pakistanis were recovered, taking the total number of recovered corpses to nine. With the discovery of five more bodies, the number of missing Pakistanis stands at 40, said the investigation agency.
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