JI leader seeks CJ’s intervention on Sahiwal encounter

Lahore: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Sirajul Haq on Sunday appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa to take notice of the police encounter in Sahiwal where four people, including parents and their teenage daughter, were killed. “The entire nation is distressed at the killing of innocent citizens. The Sahiwal incident didn’t happen in night’s darkness but in broad daylight,” he said while addressing protesters at GT Road where he arrived to express solidarity with heirs of the victims. “The government opined that the martyred people had links with terrorists but common sense doesn’t accept that a terrorist will take his family along in a car,” the JI leader said, adding that institutions had remained involved in such incidents in the past. He said the government changed its statement on the incident six to seven times in a few hours and slammed Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar over what he said their non-serious attitude. Haq appealed to the chief justice to look into the matter personally. Heirs of Sahiwal shootout victims on late Saturday night took to the streets and staged a protest sit-in against police officials involved in killing their family members in an encounter. The heirs and relatives brought bodies of their loved ones to the street and blocked the G.T. Road in protest. The protesters remained on the street in cold weather throughout the night.