October 06, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 23, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Oct 5: A Station House Officer (SHO) failed to submit his report, regarding a missing man, in the Lahore High Court (LHC), Rawalpindi bench, here on Thursday.

The judge, Justice Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah, had directed the SHO, at the last hearing, to submit a comprehensive report in this connection.

On Thursday, when the court took up the case of Imran Aziz, who had allegedly been abducted from outside the LHC premises on July 17, the RA Bazaar SHO, Azam Butt, remained absent and did not appear in court despite being ordered to submit his report.

The judge initially put aside the hearing, for taking it up again later in the day but the SHO did not appear even later and the petitioner’s lawyers left the court. The court finally adjourned the case and will notify the new date of hearing later.

During the last hearing, on Sept 20, Inspector Butt had sought more time for compiling his report, on the missing man and his plea was supplemented by special prosecutor general Saleemullah Haq, who had asked the court to wait for the SHO’s report.

Imran Aziz’s wife, Tanveer Imran, resident of Dhoke Syedan Misrial Road, in her petition through Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui advocate, stated that the local police, accompanied by the elite force and some persons in civvies, raided her house on July 8 to arrest her husband, a dentist by profession.

He was not home at the time and the police arrested two of his brothers instead —Jibran Aziz, 26 and Salman Aziz, 24. They frisked them away along with some personal belongings of Imran.

The police officials and persons from the secret agencies told the residents that Imran’s custody was required for interrogation and until he was arrested, his brothers would not be released.

Imran invoked the jurisdiction of the LHC by filing a petition for his brothers’ recovery, which was pending with the court. Jibran, one of the arrested brothers of Imran, was released on July 10, 2007 but his “illegal detention and unprecedented torture” aggravated his illness that led to his tragic death on July 15, the petitioner alleged.

Salman, the other bother of Imran, was released on July 17, 2007, the day the writ petition was fixed before the court and Imran also appeared in the court.