By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : The Supreme Court of Pakistan Sunday took suo moto notice of Saturday’s violent clashes in the Pakistani capital, and summoned the interior ministry secretary to appear before the court Monday with a draft of security arrangements planned to prevent the riots.
Violent clashes erupted outside the Election Commission office here Saturday, which left 30 lawyers and 29 journalists injured.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in his notice to the secretary of the interior ministry and top officials of the Islamabad administration asked them to appear before the court and get a security plan for Sep 29 when the Chief Election Commissioner was scrutinizing the nomination papers of President Pervez Musharraf and other candidates for the presidential elections.
The lawyers have been spearheading a campaign against the military dictatorship and are protesting against the candidacy of General Musharraf for presidential elections scheduled Oct 6.
The journalists clashed with the police when some government officials tried to prevent them from covering live the baton-charge and tear-gassing over lawyers.
The police, while chasing the protesting lawyers, also fired teargas shells that fell inside the Supreme Court building.
The apex court also asked the information ministry to run advertisements in private and public media asking eyewitnesses to help the court.
The court asked three private TV news channels – AAJ, GEO and ARY – to provide footage of the Saturday events in which lawyers and journalists were injured in the baton-charge and teargas shelling by the police.