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KARACHI, June 7: The Sindh High Court asked the federal interior and defence secretaries on Wednesday to file affidavits that a Pakistani promoter of a Dubai-based television channel was not in the custody of any of the agencies working under their ministries.
According to his wife, Munir Ahmed Mengal of ‘Baloch Voice’ was whisked away by personnel of an unnamed federal agency from the Karachi airport on his arrival from Dubai on April 4. He was detained for a while by FIA immigration officials at the airport for verification of his documents and picked up by some other agency personnel as he came out of the airport. The FIA denied arrest or custody.
The petition came up before a vacation division bench comprising Justice M. Mujibullah Siddiqui and Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery. The petitioner’s counsel, Abdul Hafeez Lakho, said the two ministries were asked twice to submit their comments but had failed to comply with the court order. He said there was no grievance against the provincial government.
The bench asked the federal secretaries to file affidavits or detailed comments by June 21, when the petition would again come up for hearing.
SHIA LEADER: The bench also directed the federal interior secretary and the Sindh home secretary to submit a detailed report in respect of Liaquat Hussain Naiyer Zaidi, leader of Pasban-i-Aaza, who was picked up on April 24. The petitioner’s brother stated through Advocates Rasheed A. Razvi and Haider Razvi that Mr Zaidi was taken into custody by the Boating Basin police station, where he was allowed to see members of his family on April 26. Nothing is known about him since.
A provincial government law officer submitted an affidavit on behalf of the home secretary saying that the alleged detainee was not in custody of any provincial agency. The bench described the ‘stereotyped’ response as inadequate compliance with the court and asked both the federal and provincial secretaries to submit detailed replies categorically stating that the detainee was not confined by any agency working under their control or supervision by June 21. If a person goes missing, the government is responsible to trace his whereabouts even though he might not have been detained by any official agency, the bench observed.
