KARACHI (Staff Report) – Supreme Court of Pakistan has rejected Sindh Rangers’ request for powers to set up police stations in the province, register First information Reports (FIRs), investigate and prosecute suspects.
A five-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali observed that a legislative intervention was required to grant Rangers the powers it had sought from the court. The court said it can’t pass an order granting the paramilitary force these powers because it was not in its jurisdiction to do so.
Sindh Rangers had filed a plea in the SC, requesting for the said powers, claiming the provincial government and police were under pressure and were ‘slowing down action against facilitators of criminal activity.’
The Rangers’ counsel had cited an example of the provincial government’s incompetence, claiming that a key suspect involved in the Safoora Goth attack had been captured in 2011 but was later released.
