KARACHI, July 10: The Sindh High Court issued notices to federal and provincial attorneys for July 14 in a petition alleging illegal arrest and detention of a Pakistani engineer brought back from Dubai and taken into custody at the Karachi airport on

July 3.

Advocate Nasir Hussain Jafri submitted on behalf of petitioner Zahra Masooma that Syed Mumtaz Hussain, an information technology administrator in Itochu Corporation, was summoned by Dubai’s CID authorities on June 6 and detained at the Emirate’s CID Centre. He was allowed telephonic contact with the petitioner, his wife, who lived with him along with their children in Dubai. The detainee told the petitioner that there was nothing to worry about and that he would return any time. He was informed by the authorities that he had been confined at the request of Pakistan’s interior and defence ministry officials.

However, Mumtaz was told to surrender his and his family members’ passports by the CID authorities. An attorney was appointed to look after his assets in Dubai and he was put aboard an Emirate Airline flight to Karachi on July 3. On arrival at the Karachi airport at noon on July 3, Mumtaz was taken away by immigration personnel of the Federal Investigation Agency while his wife and children were allowed to go home. Nothing is known about the engineer, who had been employed in Dubai for the last four years, since. Zahra requested the court to order recovery and production of her husband. She said Mumtaz had served in the Pakistan Navy before taking up a job in a private company at Dubai.

AUCTION STAYED: The bench, meanwhile, stayed the confirmation of auction of a former banking executive’s house in Gulberg, Federal ‘B’ Area, Karachi. The auction was ordered and conducted by a banking court in execution of a loan recovery decree. Appellant Mohammad Amjad, a former senior vice-president of the Bankers Equity Limited, and his wife submitted through Advocate Siddiq Khan Tanoli, that his house was worth Rs 3.5 million while it had been sold for a total of Rs1.9 million. The bench issued notice to the respondents for July 14 and stayed the confirmation of the auction.