August 06, 2006	Sunday	Rajab 10, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism Court Special Judge Malik Safdar Hussain on Saturday directed the Adiyala jail senior superintendent to justify incarceration of a woman acquitted by a military court last year, with her minor son.

Advocate Hashmat Habib, counsel of the woman, told Dawn that the judge had directed the SSP to submit his reply by Aug 16 on the detention of Shazia Mubashir for her involvement in an attempt on the life of President Pervez Musharraf.

Ms Mubashir is languishing in the jail as a condemned prisoner with her four-year-old son.

The SSP has also been ordered to extend her all facilities enshrined in the Pakistan Prison Rules.

She was produced before the court by Civil Lines police for judicial remand.

Advocates Malik Mohammad Akram and Hashmat Habib are pleading her case.

On an application seeking acquittal of Ms Mubashir, the judge served notice on the state.

The petitioner has requested the court to release Ms Mubashir since there is no case against her after she was exonerated by the field general court martial.

A request was also made to the court to call explanation and take stern action against the respondent for denying her rights admissible even to an under-trial prisoner.

Arrested from Bahawalpur five days after the Dec 25, 2003, assassination attempt, Ms Mubashir was acquitted by the field general court martial on July 21, 2005, after a trial in the Attock Fort.

In the main petition, her counsel has accused the jail authorities of keeping her in an inhuman condition in the Rawalpindi central prison, Adiyala.

Earlier, her legal counsel had served a legal notice on Adiyala Jail SSP Tariq Babar on behalf of her father, stating that she was being kept in the prison illegally. But the SSP failed to respond to the notice within the stipulated period.

After her acquittal from the charges of sedition, Ms Mubashir was handed over to the Civil Lines police for her release.

Instead of facilitating her release, police applied for further remand of her from the special judge, anti-terrorism court No.1, Rawalpindi, on Aug 24, 2005, on the basis of the same FIR in which she had been acquitted.