Judiciary: Justice in Terror
On August 2, 2024, two Policemen were killed and another two sustained injuries when terrorists attacked a convoy carrying three local court judges near Bhugwal on the Dera Ismail Khan Road in the Tank District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Police said that the three judges, including the acting District and Sessions Judge of Tank District, Malik Hasnain; acting District and Sessions Judge of South Waziristan, Malik Asghar; and senior Civil Judge of South Waziristan District, Tahira Zainab, were going in a convoy to Dera Ismail Khan, when terrorists attacked them. However, the judges were unharmed and reached to safety in an armoured personnel carrier. A Police vehicle, which was taken away by terrorists, was later founded torched and abandoned.
On July 24, 2024, the deputy chief of the radical Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Pir Syed Zaheer ul Hassan, announced “head money” on the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Qazi Faez Isa, after the Supreme Court accepted the Punjab Government’s plea to revisit its February 6, 2024, order in the Mubarak Ahmad Sani case, and declared that the right to profess religion and religious freedom, as ensured by the Constitution, is subject to law, morality and public order. Sani was accused of an offence in 2019 under the Punjab Holy Quran (Printing and Recording) (Amendment) Act. Pir Syed Zaheer ul Hassan was arrested on July 29, 2024, in the Okara District of Punjab under the Anti-Terrorism Act (7-ATA).
On April 27, 2024, a judge of the South Waziristan District, Shakirullah Marwat, was abducted by terrorists from the Garah Mohabaat Adda area under Hathla Police Station in Kulachi tehsil (revenue unit) of Dera Ismail Khan District in KP. Later, in a video clip he was heard saying that he was abducted by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and his release was only possible if the militants’ demands were accepted. On April 28, however, the Dera Ismail Khan Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) stated that the abductee reached home safely after being released ‘unconditionally’.
In addition to judges, lawyers, another important set of functionaries of the judicial system, have also faced constant threat from terrorism.
In one of the most recent attacks on lawyers, on January 15, 2024, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist, Abdul Latif Afridi, known as a vocal critic of both the military and Islamist militants, was shot dead by unidentified assailants at a court in Peshawar, the provincial capital of KP. Abdul Latif Afridi was former president of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association. Though this was the lone fatal attack on lawyers recorded in 2024, according to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 123 lawyers have been killed, and another 210 have been injured, in 37 incidents of attack on lawyers since 2007. These attacks have forced many lawyers to leave the country. The prominently targeted lawyers include:
Senior Advocate of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Saif ul Mulook, who helped in acquitting the blasphemy convicted Asia Bibi, after eight years on death row, fled the country on November 4, 2021.
Christian lawyer and human rights activist, Advocate Sardar Mushtaq Gill, who was the legal counsel in the Shahzad and Shamma Masih lynching case, went into hiding on July 1, 2016, after being threatened with serious consequences and subsequently surviving an assault by extremists. There were serious concerns for the security of his family as well, and his family escaped an abduction bid on May 22, 2016. On April 1, 2015, Gill’s brother, Prevaiz Gill, was shot and injured in Lahore. Gill has been singled out for his legal support to Pakistan’ persecuted Masih couple, who were beaten and then burnt alive by a mob over alleged blasphemy accusations.
Abdul Maroof, the Special Public Prosecutor of Sindh, once regarded as one of the most effective prosecutors in Karachi, took refuge in the United States in August 2014, after his house was attacked on November 21, 2013, and his brother was assassinated on April 12, 2014. Maroof was responsible for pursuing cases involving some of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the region, including TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ, a violent Sunni extremist group). Maroof disclosed that he received frequent death threats, and his requests for greater resources and security for himself and his staff were turned down by the Sindh Home Department. He stated, “Until mid-2013, my department did not have a vehicle and no security details, despite the fact we were handling a majority of the cases related to the TTP or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.”
Some major incidents of terrorist attacks on judges and lawyers in Pakistan since 2007 include:
March 7, 2016: A teenage suicide bomber killed at least 17 people, including six women, two children and two Policemen, and injured another 23, at the Court Complex in the Shabqadar tehsil (revenue unit) of Charsadda District in KP. The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) faction of the TTP had claimed responsibility, calling it revenge for the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed killer of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer. Taseer had advocated amendments to the blasphemy law, and had spoken out in defence of blasphemy accused Asia Bibi.
March 3, 2014: At least 11 persons, including Additional District and Sessions Judge Rafaqat Awan, a woman lawyer, and a Policeman, were killed and another 25 were injured, when terrorists attacked the courthouse complex in Islamabad. Asad Mansoor, the then spokesman of Ahrar-ul-Hind (AuH), a TTP splinter group, claiming responsibility for the attack, declared that the judicial system in the country was ‘un-Islamic’ and that they would continue their ‘struggle’ till the enforcement of Shariah law.
June 26, 2013: A bomb attack targeting a Sindh High Court judge killed at least 10 persons, including two Rangers personnel, six Policemen and the driver of the judge’s car, and injured 15, including the judge, near Burns Road in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. The intended target of the terrorists was the then senior Sindh High Court judge, Justice Maqbool Baqar. The then TTP ‘spokesman’ Ehsanullah Ehsan had claimed responsibility of the attack, saying they detonated the bomb remotely, adding, “We attacked the judge in Karachi as he was taking decisions against Shariah and he was harmful for Mujahideen.”
July 17, 2007: At least 17 people were killed as a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the venue of the District Bar Council Convention in Islamabad, killing some Pakistan Peoples Party political workers waiting for the arrival of the then deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, who was due to address the lawyers’ convention.
February 17, 2007: At least 17 people, including Senior Civil Judge Abdul Wahid Durrani, were killed and 30 were injured, in a powerful suicide bombing in the Quetta District Courts compound.
More recently, on April 3, 2024, a newly emerged terrorist group, the Tehreek Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Pakistan (TTNP) sent threat letters to the judges of Supreme Court. Earlier, on September 17, 2023, the Bomb Disposal Squad had recovered a bag containing three grenades, a pistol and an alleged threat letter from TTNP in Islamabad. The threat letter was addressed to judges and generals. A section of the letter read,
The justice system of the country has been rotten and brain drain is on its peak. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are hopeless. We have decided to teach a lesson to judges and generals.
Further on April 5, 2024, another 10 Supreme Court judges received threat letters. Traces of arsenic powder was found on the envelopes of all these letters.
More worryingly, the judicial fraternity, in addition to receiving threats from Islamist terrorist outfits and Islamic radical groups, is also under pressure from the security agencies.
Indeed, in a startling letter written to members of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), six Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges on March 25, 2024, accused the country’s intelligence apparatus of interference in judicial affairs, including attempts to pressure judges through the abduction and torture of their relatives and secret surveillance of their homes. The letter, addressed to Supreme Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, Supreme Court Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Munib Akhtar, and Chief Justices of the IHC and Peshawar High Court, also raised the question of whether there the State Police existed in order to intimidate and coerce judges.
Clearly the judiciary would find it difficult, if not impossible, to execute its duties in an unbiased and balanced manner under such circumstances. The administrative chaos across Pakistan can only be substantially worsened by the distortions forced upon the justice system by the present environment of direct intimidation and targeted terrorist violence.