Three judges of Pakistan’s Lahore High Court (LHC) received threatening letters containing white powder on Wednesday, as confirmed by the court’s Registrar Office.
The judges who received these letters are Justice Shujaat Ali Khan, Justice Shahid Bilal Hasan, and Justice Alia Neelum.
Upon receiving the letters, Lahore police and the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) senior officers promptly reached the LHC premises to investigate the matter. The letters were taken into custody, and security measures for the LHC judges were heightened in response to the incident.
The police also apprehended the employee of the courier company responsible for delivering the letters. The individual was taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation as part of the ongoing investigation.
Given the suspicious nature of the white powder, suspected to be anthrax, Punjab police spokesperson stated that the substance has been sent to a laboratory for examination and confirmation.
This incident follows a similar occurrence the day before, where all eight judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), including Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, received letters suspected to be laced with anthrax.
The threatening letters to high court judges surfaced after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice and formed a seven-member bench chaired by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa to hear the case of six IHC justices who accused spy agencies, including ISI, of meddling in judicial matters.
The IHC judges had alleged that their bedrooms were bugged, and their relatives were abducted and tortured by the intelligence agencies’ personnel to get desired verdicts.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has demanded a thorough and immediate investigation into the threatening letters with white powder sent to IHC and LHC judges.
