KARACHI: The Supreme Court of Pakistan will resume hearing Karachi law and order case for the third consecutive day at its Karachi Registry.
A five-member larger bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry will hear the case. The bench has summoned former Custom Collector over the issue of transportation of arms.
On Thursday, the CJ observed that criminals were using sophisticated weapons arms than the security forces. Advocate General Sindh conceded that the sophisticated weapons being used by criminals were not locally made.
The federal government submitted its report to the court in which it contended that a full-fledged operation in Lyari might open an additional front and could unleash a new wave of violence.
However, the federal government maintained that action should be taken against a group known as the Mohajir Republican Army.
The report was filed by the Attorney General for Pakistan on behalf of the Ministry of Interior.
The report said that over a period of time, criminal gangs had matured into formidable syndicates which had developed alliances with terrorist cells.
The federal government submitted that Karachi was confronted with multi-dimensional threats compounded by its rapid urbanisation and the major threats were in the form of terrorism, targeted assassinations, sectarian and ethnic killings besides other forms of organised crime.
Unfortunately, it said, that various facets of these syndicates had succeeded in developing political patronage in various forms. Being lucrative, crimes like smuggling narcotics, arms, land grabbing and extortion had become common and routine.
The report said that these alliances had cemented over the previous decade or so and extremely careful and responsible handling was required to disentangle the situation.
