The murder of Hamad Raza, additional registrar of the Supreme Court, was targeted, defence lawyers of suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry told the court on Monday, while pointing accusing finger towards the country’s top spy agency, the Intern Services Intelligence, (ISI) as the possible suspect.

Raza was gunned down at his residence by the four assailants, who forced entry into his house on Monday.

Iftikhar’s key attorney Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan said the murder might have a nexus with his case.

He said Raza was under pressure to divulge information about Iftikhar that could be added to the allegations in the presidential reference against him.

Aitzaz quoted newspaper reports that ISI agents had been harassing Raza to extract information. He was inducted in the SC administration by Iftikhar and enjoyed a reputation of impeccable integrity. He urged the court to take notice of the murder.

Justice Khalil Ramday, the presiding judge of the Full Court, told Aitzaz that the entire judiciary was shocked by the incident. He said acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas had already taken a suo motu notice and had ordered a judicial probe.

English daily, The New Tuesday cited Raza’s colleagues as saying that he was under immense pressure to stand in the witness box against the Chief Justice. Hamad was asked frivolous questions like the character of the CJ’s son, Dr Arsalan, and his relations with his wife.

Everyone in the SC knows that he was in a way personal staff officer to the CJ and it was for this very reason that he got a third degree treatment in repeated sessions by the agents.

Raza had told his family and friends during the last two months that he was summoned by secret agencies that were trying to get information about the alleged “wrongdoing” of the CJ.

Raza’s contention, according to his friends, was that yes he would stand witness, but not for any party, only for truth and justice.

His wife told the SC judges, who visited her for condolences, that they should be careful about their own lives and security. She termed the incident a target killing.

Hamad Raza had summoned the IGP, Islamabad, the DIG and the SSP for operations and investigations. However, investigations SP Ashfaq Ahmed said he had not yet received any SC summon.

New York, May 15
The CBS network fired two “shock jocks” over an on-air slur against the Asians, the US media reported, weeks after another radio host was sacked for making a racist remark.

The hosts of “The Dog House with JV and Elvis”, Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, had been suspended earlier as the broadcaster decided their fate.

The show was permanently cancelled after the two placed an on-air order to a Chinese restaurant for “slimp flied lice” and compared food items to certain parts of the body on April 5.

“The show will no longer be broadcast,” CBS Radio spokeswoman Karen Mateo told the New York Daily News.

After the prank call was broadcast, the Organisation of Chinese Americans, an advocacy group, had blasted the network and demanded the CBS to fire the hosts.

The move came after Don Imus, who had enjoyed a large national audience for his radio and television programme, was fired after he called the Rutgers university women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s,” nappy referring to the tight hair of many African-Americans and ho, as street talk for whore.

“In the wake of the Imus case, it would have been maddening to the community if these idiots did not get fired,” Queens City Councilman John Liu told the New York daily. — AFP

Expressing solidarity with the law practitioners of Pakistan for their ongoing agitation against the suspension of the Pakistan Chief Justice,the Nepal Bar Association (NBA), an umbrella organisation of law practitioners in Nepal, urged the government of Pakistan to stop atrocities against lawyers while they were holding peaceful demonstrations.

A delegation of the NBA led by president Bishwo Kanta Mainali handed over a memorandum to the Embassy of Pakistan in Kathmandu on Monday urging the Pakistani government not to weaken the independence of the judiciary by suppressing lawyers while the latter were protesting in peaceful manner.

“The NBA would like to express its solidarity with the lawyers’ community struggling for the independence of the judiciary and professional independence of judges and lawyers in Pakistan,” the memorandum reads.

Kandahar, May 15
Air strikes by NATO-led forces killed 60 Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province overnight,the police said today.

The strikes targeted a gathering of Taliban fighters late yesterday, and were followed by ground troops who entered villages in the province today, they said.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it did not immediately have information about such a strike.

"Sixty Taliban militants were killed in a NATO-led aerial operation yesterday night on a Taliban gathering point in Zahri district of Kandahar province," provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai said.

The dead included three well-known Taliban commanders, he said.

Zahri, about 30 km east of Kandahar city, has been a flashpoint for Taliban violence.

A man claiming to be a Taliban commander in Kandahar and Helmand, Mullah MohammddIbrahim Hanafi, said the air strikes had been preceded by a Taliban attack.

"Following that attack, NATO helicopters arrived in the area and they bombed the area. A number of Taliban were martyred as a result but I don't have exact figures," he said.

Hanafi said the movement had arrested three "spies" in Zahri today. — AFP