ISLAMABAD: Former law minister Babar Awan filed an application to the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Monday seeking constitution of a judicial commission to examine a statement of Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah declaring him (Babar Awan) liable to be killed.The applicant prayed the CJP to form the judicial commission to examine the records and witnesses pertaining to the statement of Sanaullah and to enforce and protect his (applicants) rights under Article 4 and 9 of the constitution. He said court’s intervention in the matter was necessary from another aspect too as Sanaullah was also a part of the judicial commission which appoints judges of the constitutional courts.
He said if anything happens to his person, life, property or family, Sanaullah should be held responsible. He said he had also learnt that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s government wanted to arrest him on a false charge or some other pretext and then facilitate an attack on his life either in jail, police station or a local court.The applicant said the public announcement by Sanaullah, for all practical purposes and intents, amounted to passing of an extra-judicial death sentence against him, particularly keeping in view the trends of extra-judicial killings by the Punjab Police. Under the circumstances, he said, there was imminent danger and threat to his life from Sanaullah and others.
He said Sanaullah’s statement places his fundamental right of life in serious jeopardy. The applicant said he had learnt through former federal minister and a prominent leader and sardar from Balochistan that some outlaws at or near Fort Manro, a border area of Punjab and Balochistan, were contacted on behalf of the executive of Punjab through some gangsters, and they took them to Multan.Babar said they were asked to attack him between Gujranwala and Lahore. He said they were offered the assistance of police and complete security cover to accomplish the task. The said persons, he said, were given his photograph and were told that he was a lawyer. The outlaws, however later came to know that the man whom they had to kill was a political figure and a former minister and they revealed the plan to the Baloch sardar.
The applicant said Sanaullah claims publicly to be a very influential person, thus his public statement terming him liable to be killed cannot be taken lightly.He said that the Punjab government had earlier staged a drama of so-called assassination plot of former chief justice of the Lahore High Court alleging that Babar Awan was part of the conspiracy. However, he said later a judicial commission concluded that it was a drama.Baber said that in a similar case, former chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah took suo motu action on the application of late Benazir Bhutto when a PML-N adviser from Sindh, Sahibzada Munir said in a press statement that Asif Ali Zardari would be hanged. – Dailytimes
