KARACHI: SHC tells police to inquire into MQM men’s disappearance
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, Oct 23: A division bench of the Sindh High Court expressed on Tuesday concern over the “sudden disappearance” of two detainees after being released in the RAW agents case, and called upon police to investigate the matter.
Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed observed this when two identical petitions filed by mother and wife of two activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Shafiq and Abdul Jabbar, regarding their alleged illegal detention after their acquittal in a case of being agents or working for Indian intelligence agency RAW, came up for hearing.
The bench comprised Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Ali Aslam Jaferi.
When hearing began on Tuesday, SSP CIA Karachi Manzoor Ahmed Mughal filed a statement that no officer of the CIA Karachi had brought the detainees from the jail to CIA centre.
He also stated that Inspector Rao Iqbal was not posted in the CIA, therefore the CIA was totally unaware of the present situation of the detainees.
Mehmood Akbar Khan, the Superintendent of Multan Jail, in his letter to the office of the court, requested that he be provided complete names, parents’ names, caste and addresses of the detainees to enable him to find out their whereabouts.
On Oct 2 the division bench had put the superintendent of Multan jail on notice to state whether the two Muttahida activists were in his custody, and if so, under what authority of law.
This order was issued because during the proceedings it was stated that they were taken to Multan by the Punjab police.
Police have maintained that the detainees, Mohammed Shafique alias Pappu and Abdul Jabbar alias Zafar, whose death sentence and convictions, awarded by an anti-terrorism court, was set aside by an anti-terrorism appellate bench of the Sindh High Court on Aug 31, and they were released by the superintendent of the Central Prison, Karachi, after receiving their acquittal order.
On Sept 20 the same bench was informed that the two Muttahida activists, who were allegedly whisked away by the CIA from the Central Prison, after being acquitted of the charges of working for RAW, were alive and somewhere in Punjab or Balochistan.
Counsel for the petitioner had maintained that during the entire proceeding of the case against them in the anti-terrorism court none of the respondents had disclosed that no other case against Jabbar and Shafique was pending.
An anti-terrorism appellate bench of the SHC had earlier set aside the death sentence awarded to the two activists of the MQM by an ATC for allegedly working for RAW, and had dismissed the state’s appeal against the acquittal of their five accomplices.
The court had also ordered the release of the two appellants/convicts forthwith, while allowing their appeals.
In a detailed judgment Justice S. A. Rabbani had held that “Neither the charge was framed in accordance with law, nor convictions made are valid and proper.
The learned judge of the trial court has not considered the ingredients legally necessary to constitute the offences.”
The appellate bench held that even if these technicalities were ignored, or rectified, the result would remain the same as the evidence produced by the prosecution was too inadequate and defective to prove any guilt of the appellants in the appeal Nos 10 and 11 of 2001 and the respondents in the appeal No 12 of 2001.
