People's Democracy

 

PAKISTAN

 

SC Orders Torturer’s Arrest

 

THROUGH a statement issued by its Central Secretariat member, Imdad Qazi, on September 21, the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) has welcomed the Supreme Court’s order for the arrest of Brigadier Imtiaz Billa who has been the main culprit behind the torture to and cold-blooded murder of Comrade Nazir Abbasi. He has also been guilty of torturing and killing a number of other Sindhi and Baloch political workers in detention camps.

 

On this occasion, the CPP has reiterated the demand that the murder of Comrade Nazeer Abbasi and other political workers should be investigated afresh and due punishment meted out according to the law to this top notorious criminal of Pakistan. The party has also warned the undemocratic forces that they would have to face stiff resistance if they attempt to derail the nascent democratic process in the country.

 

As we noted in our article on Comrade Nazir Abbasi’s martyrdom day (People’s Democracy, August 22, 2010), Brigadier Imtiaz Billa, when he was a colonel, was the chief of ISI operations in Sindh and was the mastermind behind a spate of detentions, torture and murder of political workers belonging to oppositional political organisations in Balochistan and Sindh. The assassination of Comrade Nazir Abbasi after the latter was brutally tortured in a detention camp for nine days, was the most notorious crime Billa and his subordinated had committed.

 

For years, the democratic and progressive people of Pakistan have been demanding that there must be a fresh, impartial and thorough probe into the assassination of Comrade Nazir Abbasi and others in detention camps. In case of Comrade Nazir Abbasi, though an FIR was lodged on August 17, 1980 itself, only a few days after Comrade Nazir Abbasi’s martyrdom, nothing has come out so far. While addressing a press conference on August 8 this year, Begum Hamida Ghangro, the life-partner and comrade-in-arms of Nazir Abbasi, had also reiterated the demand, and made an appeal to the Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohd Chaudhari to take suo moto action on the 1980 FIR in Comrade Nazir’s case.

 

While welcoming this step taken by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, we do hope that the case would be taken to its logical culmination so that the likes of Billa and his subordinates are taught a suitable lesson and made to deter from anti-human acts in future.