KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday issued a non-bailable warrant for the arrest of the deputy superintendent of police (DSP) of Korangi for not complying with a court order regarding action against some policemen allegedly involved in illegal detention of a man.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Naimat Ullah Phulpoto was hearing a constitutional petition of Irshad Bibi, a resident of Korangi, against detention of her son Mohammed Irfan.

According to the petitioner, Korangi police officials raided her house in December last year and took away her son and her daughter-in-law.

She alleged that the police officials released Irfan’s wife but demanded Rs100,000 for releasing Irfan.

The petitioner submitted that the family took money to the police station for the release of Irfan, who, however, was not present in the police station.

The SHC had earlier directed the Korangi DSP to take action against those policemen who were named by the petitioner and produce them in court.

On Thursday, the bench showed extreme annoyance over the inaction on the part of the DSP and ordered the issuance of the arrest warrant against him.

The bench would take up the matter on March 12.

The same also bench gave a last chance to the interior secretary, the home secretary, the provincial police chief and the Rangers director general to file comments on a petition seeking whereabouts of a missing lawyer and his four family members.

Advocate Mohammed Usman, his brother Mohammed Abbas and nephews — Mohammed Rizwan, Mohammed Adnan and Mohammed Ehsan — were allegedly taken away by personnel of law enforcement agencies after a raid on their house in Orangi Town on Feb 3.

The missing lawyer’s father, Sirhinjan Khan, filed a petition with the SHC against the illegal arrest and detention of his family members.

The petitioner told the judges that he approached the higher officials of the law enforcement agencies to seek information about their location but to no avail as the law enforcers and the area police feigned ignorance about the incident.

The bench expressed extreme displeasure over the failure of the respondent officials in filing comments as only a report on behalf of the Intelligence Bureau was placed on record by the state counsel. The IB denied in its report that it had arrested or detained the missing persons.

The bench gave the last chance to the respondent officials for filing their respective comments and put off the hearing to Feb 23.

Besides, the bench also took up several other cases of missing persons, including three members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement — Mohammed Ali, Mohammed Naeem and Arif.

The MQM members were allegedly arrested over 17 months ago during a raid on their sector office, a unit of the organisational structure of the party, by Rangers and the police.

The court ordered for the production of the footage of the closed-circuit television camera installed at the sector office.

In a case of Azhar Iqbal, missing since 2011, the bench directed the SSP of Malir to appear in court and inform the court about the progress so far made for the recovery of the missing man. The bench would hear the matter on March 19.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2015

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