Staff Reporter
Islamabad
PTI leader and federal minister Ali Zaidi asked Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed to take a suo motu notice on the Uzair Baloch JIT report released by the Sindh government Tuesday, saying the original report had been tampered with.
PTI federal ministers Shibli Faraz and Ali Zaidi were holding a press conference on the recently-released Joint Investigation Team’s report on Lyari gangster Uzair Baloch.
“It was our party’s efforts, Ali Zaidi went to court as well. The JIT reports were not being made public,” he said, accusing some parties who were in power in Sindh of establishing their ‘personal state’ rather than establishing the rule of law.
“We [PTI] have come to change the country and to do that, it is necessary to implement a reward and punishment system,” said Zaidi. “This does not pertain to a petty motorcycle or car theft. He [Uzair Baloch] is admitting to 198 murders,” he added. The minister said that the report, interestingly, did not mention on whose behest Baloch carried out the murders or committed all the crimes. Reading from the JIT report, Zaidi said that Uzair had confessed that he met former chief minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah and PPP leader Faryal Talpur to have the head money on him waived off. He said that at the last page of Baloch’s sworn statement, the Lyari gangster had said he feared for his life, which he believed was under threat from Zardari and other politicians.
The minister emphasised that the Sindh government had released the Baldia factory fire JIT report on Monday “with great difficulty”, saying that the report said that the “gory act of Baldia factory is a glaring example of police inefficiency”.
“When Sindh Police SP Rizwan released the report, he was transferred to Shikarpur,” Zaidi disclosed. “Farhan Ghani removed an honest police officer.”
He said that the Sindh government had been reluctant to release the JIT report and said that its release would prove to be harmful for the nation’s security.
“Those who were making [critical] speeches in the assembly were patrons of gangsters in the JIT report,” he said, taking a shot indirectly at the PPP leadership.
“Today, I am presenting the report in front of you that contains signatures on every page,” said Zaidi. “Special Branch, CID, ISI, MI, IB and Pakistan Rangers’ [officials] signatures are present in this report,” he added.
The minister said that the original report was 43 pages long while the one released by the Sindh government was based on 35 pages.
The Federal Minister of Maritime Affairs. No such documents were given to the Sindh government.
He objected that JIT legally formed by the government and the question is, if no one signed the documents, who gave them to Ali Zaidi? This is proof that Ali Zaidi is doing the same thing as it has been done in the past to make documents.
He said that in the case of Uzair Baloch, a seven-member JIT was constituted which submitted its report to the Home Department.
“If I write on paper that Ali Zaidi is not mentally fit, it will be meaningless,” he said. Confirmation of mental health can only be done after a doctor s signature.
“The Sindh government had said that it will make the JIT reports public and we have fulfilled that promise. We said we would present official documents and have done exactly that,” said Sindh government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab.
Commenting on the allegations made by Zaidi on the floor of the National Assembly, he said that the minister had sworn that the reports implicated the PPP leadership.