HYDERABAD, May 29: The defence counsel, Rai Bashir Ahmed, has filed a criminal miscellaneous application before the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge, Syed Ali Ashraf Shah, on Wednesday, raising objections on the grant of stay, withholding the release of video cassette to defence lawyers.

The stay was granted for 72 hours by the court on Tuesday on an application, filed by Advocate General Sindh Raja Qureshi.

Today, Rai Basheer Ahmed visited the court to receive the certified copy of the video cassette showing the slaughtering of US journalist Daniel Pearl, as per order of the ATC Judge, passed on an application of Rai Basheer Ahmed on Tuesday.

However, the cassette was not provided to him on the ground that the court has stayed the operation of the same order.

Rai Basheer Ahmed told journalists at the press club that in his application he had stated that since these were criminal proceedings the court had got no jurisdiction to stay the operation of its own order.

He said that there was simply no provision of law to stay the order.

SHC: A division bench of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, on Wednesday issued notices to the AAG Sindh, DPO Hyderabad, superintendent jail and SHO police station B-section on a constitutional petition, challenging the detention of a former leader of proscribed Tehrik-i-Jaffria Pakistan, M. Ali Jarwar.

The petition has been fixed for a date to be fixed by the office of the court.

The petition was filed by Shafi M. Jarwar through Advocate Javed Bukhari.

He claimed that the police levelled baseless allegations against the petitioner who was the khatib of the Imamiya Mosque, and added that in the light of the vague report of the police, the provincial home department detained the petitioner’s brother-in-law for 60 days under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (MPO) 1960, and the superintendent jail had also disallowed him to meet with his relatives.

The petitioner’s lawyer claimed that the detenue had dissociated himself with the banned organization a long time ago.

He termed the MPO illegal as the detainee had never ever been involved in any immoral or unlawful act.

He prayed the court to declare the order as illegal and the superintendent jail should be asked to allow relatives to meet with the detenue.

POWER BREAKDOWNS: Power breakdowns of long durations are causing untold hardships to the residents of Tilak incline since the last several days.