KARACHI: Missing activists: SHC notes agencies’ evasive response: DAG asked to furnish facts
By Shujaat Ali Khan
KARACHI, Dec 6: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday asked an interior ministry official who submitted a report on missing persons to the Supreme Court to appear on December 20 and apprise it of the whereabouts of about 13 people allegedly detained by intelligence agencies.
The division bench also asked Deputy Attorney-General Akhter Ali Mahmud to get in touch with the Prime Minister’s Secretariat to obtain its report concerning detention cases in view of the divergent and evasive replies of the ministries, divisions and agencies allegedly involved in arrests and detentions.
Even a high-level committee of provincial police officers failed to solve the dilemma of ‘disappearance’ of certain people picked up by unknown agency personnel.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Faisal Arab was hearing petitions moved by Hazoor Bakhsh Sasoli, Humaira Ali, Zahida Laghari, Javera Arif, Naz Bibi, Shamim Begum, Abeera Munir, Ms Shabana, Jibran Baladi, Zehra Masooma and others. The detainees include Abdul Rauf Sasoli of the Jamhoori Watan Party, Munir Ahmed Mengal of Dubai-based channel ‘Baloch Voice’, former student Affan Laghari, Jeay Sindh activist Asif Baladi and Syed Mumtaz Husain.
Advocates Rasheed A. Razvi, Abdul Hafeez Lakho, Syed Ghulam Shah and S. M. Iqbal were among the lawyers representing the petitioners.
Advocate Razvi pointed out that detainee Mumtaz Husain was claimed to have been released in the report submitted by Lt-Col Imran Yaqub, Operations Director of the interior ministry’s Crisis Management Cell, in the Supreme Court. The claim, he said, was misleading as he was still ‘missing’ and his wife Zahra Masooma’s petition filed by him was still pending.
The bench expressed its displeasure over divergent claims and evasive replies submitted on behalf of the ministries and agencies. It observed that there was a marked tendency to shift responsibility for arrest and detention from one ministry to another. The ministries washed their hands off by claiming that the intelligence agencies did not function under their administrative or operational control. It asked Col Imran Yaqub to appear on Dec 20 and asked the DAG to establish contact with the PM’s Secretariat to obtain information from the one office that should be in control of all ministries and agencies.
The bench deplored the police failure to trace the whereabouts of missing people. Even a high-level committee constituted by the Sindh government found no clue to the detainees. Advocate Ghulam Shah stated that he has mentioned even the registration number of the car in which Jeay Sindh activist Asif Baladi was whisked away but no effort was apparently made by the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police to trace the car or its owners.
The bench remarked the police should not wait for court orders to register detention cases. The petitioners before the court are known to the police and it should approach them to register their complaints. Petitions would not have to be filed in courts if the police registered FIRs and tried to ascertain the detainees’ whereabouts, it said.
Advocate S. M. Iqbal informed the bench that Bilal Bugti, brother of JWP Senator Agha Shahid Bugti, and Bilal Bugti, nephew of the late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, have since been released and returned home. The bench disposed of the petitions for their recovery and production accordingly.
It observed that one great difficulty in dealing with detention cases was that the detainees or their counsel seldom record their statements once they are released. They keep silent over the circumstance of their arrest and detention.
NEW PETITION: Advocate A.H. Lakho, meanwhile, submitted another petition against the arrest of Ghulam Mohammad Baloch and Sher Mohammad Baloch by a police contingent from the Hyderi Baloch Football Club ground. They were sitting peacefully on the club premises after cancellation of a public meeting near Juna Masjid due to the sudden downpour. The manner of their arrest provoked spontaneous reaction and the police resorted to teargas shelling. Petitioner Abdul Wahab Baloch requested the court to direct the police to furnish complete details of the detainees’ whereabouts and release them if they were not required in any case.
FLAWED AFFIDAVIT: A division bench comprising Justices Rehmat Husain Jafri and Mrs Yasmeen Abbasey, meanwhile, asked an SHC writ branch official to explain on December 8 how he accepted an inadmissible affidavit on behalf of a federal Investigation Agency’s Deputy Director Shahid Hayat. Advocate Haider Imam Rizvi, who has moved a contempt application against the FIA official for misleading the court in respect of the arrest and detention of Dr Syed Ali Raza Zaidi. The doctor was arrested by the FIA on his arrival at Karachi airport on July 19 but the agency claimed that nobody by that name arrived at any airport of the country on that date. When the President’s House conducted an inquiry in response to a representation made by Dr Zaidi’s petitioner wife, the FIA admitted that the doctor had arrived Karachi on July 19.
The petitioner’s counsel said the FIA official thus deliberately and willfully misled the court and committed its contempt. The division bench sought a rejoinder on oath and Shahid Hayat filed an affidavit which was not properly sworn but was entertained by the official concerned. The bench issued a notice to the official concerned and asked the deponent to submit a fresh affidavit.
HYDRANT CASE: Another division bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Sajjad Ali Shah gave a last opportunity to the city district government counsel, Advocate Manzoor Ahmed, to submit comments on a petition moved by Mrs Ruth Sami Ahmed about the public nuisance created by the Muslimabad Hydrant and extended the interim order restraining water tankers from using the Joseph d’Abro Road.
The Pakistan Rangers said in their comments that they were responsible only for the distribution of water to the dry areas on the orders of the Sindh government. Establishment and shifting of hydrants was the sole responsibility of the city district government or the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board. The Jamshed Town municipal administration said it had nothing to do with the hydrant. The traffic police said it invariably acted against errant drivers and the matter pertains to the city district government. The bench asked the CDGK to submit its comments, and adjourned further hearing to December 22.
