LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on Tuesday expressed grief at the loss of life in Hazara region and denounced the brutal suppression of public protests by the police on Monday.
In a press statement, the commission demanded a judicial probe into the killings in Abbotabad as well as the circumstances in which people’s passions were aroused, apparently for political manipulation.
It said that while any excess or disproportionate use of force could not be condoned, it was also necessary to expose and punish all those elements that had chosen the path of violence in order to subvert any move towards building of a national consensus.
HRCP has urged the provincial government to hold accountable those members of the law-enforcement agencies who resorted to violence. It must also use all peaceful and political means to assuage the hurt caused to the people of the region, it demanded.
HRCP said it believed that the issue of renaming the NWFP had been deliberately used to polarise society, at a time when the nation was confronted with extremely grave issues of humanitarian crisis, unemployment, violence and power and gas shortages. This controversy, it said, had been escalated on the eve of introduction of constitutional amendments, which were likely to make important structural changes in the polity.
Source: Dawn – 14.04.2010