A day subsequent to the delivery of anthrax-laced letters to several judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), the registrar’s office disclosed that four judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC) have received similar threatening letters, as reported on Wednesday. The Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Operations Shahzad Bukhari further stated that judges from the Supreme Court (SC) and the Lahore High Court (LHC) were also targeted with “threatening letters.”
The senior police official appeared before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) earlier in the day, informing the court that these letters were directed at the most senior judges of the LHC. He detailed that law enforcement teams, including personnel from the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), were dispatched to the LHC premises to bolster security measures.
During the proceedings concerning a cypher case, a senior police representative updated IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq on the status of the letters sent to IHC judges, mentioning that these had been submitted for forensic analysis with a report anticipated within a few days. When questioned about the letters’ origin, the police official indicated that the stamps were indecipherable and revealed that judges from the LHC and SC had also received letters from the same sender that day.
Followed by IHC letters
Upon inquiry about the postal origins, the CTD SSP suggested that the letters likely originated from the Rawalpindi post office, clarifying that they were not directly mailed from the General Post Office (GPO) but were instead deposited in the GPO letter box.
On Wednesday, the DIG Operations confirmed the receipt of threat letters containing suspicious substances by Supreme Court (SC) judges, including Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, and Justice Aminuddin Khan, following the events at Islamabad High Court (IHC). The IHC Chief Justice further questioned the police officer about the incidents and confirmed that the letters had been handed over to the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) for investigation.
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Additionally, the Lahore High Court (LHC) judges, including Justice Shujaat Ali Khan, Justice Shahid Bilal Hasan, Justice Alia Neelum, and Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh, were reported to have received such letters, prompting heightened security measures and forensic examinations at the court premises, including scrutiny of CCTV footage.