Rabbani proposes Senate body to look into extra-judicial killings.

Byline: Imran Mukhtar

ISLAMABAD -- Former Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani on Tuesday demanded summoning of Senate Committee of the Whole House to discuss 'never-ending' extra-judicial killings by the law enforcement agencies in the wake of Sahiwal tragedy.

Speaking on a point of public importance in the Senate on Tuesday, Pakistan People's Party Senator Rabbani said that the Parliament would have to play its role to end the 'decades-old extra-judicial killings in the hands of the state'.

'I through the chair would request leader of the house and opposition leader to summon a meeting of Committee of the Whole House under the rules,' he said, adding that he had been seeing Sahiwal incident like extra-judicial killings 'under a policy of the state and a well thought-out plan'. These killings had a long list starting from the judicial murder of PPP founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the killing of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, he said.

He continued that when the state realised impossible for it to eliminate the terrorists while remaining within the ambit of the law, it 'gave license to extrajudicial killing'. When they gave the license, there left no obstacle, he said, adding that then they witnessed Sahiwal like incidents where in parents were killed in front of their children. 'The children whose smile is the future of this country, the state was supposed to give them the smile, but it snatched that smile from them,' he lamented.

Rabbani said that they witnessed personnel of the state kept targeting a couple with bullets while riding a scooter in Karachi. He went on to say that this has compelled him to recall what former opposition leader in the Senate Aitzaz Ahsan used to say: 'The state will be like a mother.' 'But now the state has become like a witch that is killing the innocent citizens through its violent tactics,' he said.

'In which direction we're heading? Which system is this,' he questioned and added: 'Even our civil law has four different applications.' He said that the then military courts were established but even then extrajudicial killings did not stop. He warned unless there is no rule of law, this situation will persist. He further said that the matter has not stopped to enforced disappearances, and again questioned whether...