KARACHI: A two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday refused to hear a petition against the transfer of an undertrial prisoner, Mohammad Ajmal, better-known as Ajmal Pahari, from the Karachi central prison to the Sukkur jail.

Justice Ahmed Ali M. Sheikh, heading the division bench, referred the matter to the SHC chief justice to pass appropriate orders for its disposal.

Pahari, who was re-arrested in New Karachi in March 2011, was booked in a number of criminal cases, including an armed attack on the convoy of CID SP Mohammad Aslam Khan in Gizri in January 2006 that left two police officials dead.

Take a look: Ajmal Pahari shifted with CJ’s approval, SHC told

He was among the 74 condemned, undertrial and convicted prisoners who were shifted from the Karachi central prison to other penitentiaries in the province in 2014 after the approval of the then SHC CJ Maqbool Baqar.

A constitutional petition against Pahari’s transfer was later filed by his wife, Fouzia Hussain, who apprehended her husband’s life at a penitentiary out of their home city.

The jail superintendent filed a report on a court order stating that there were over 5,200 inmates in the Karachi jail and many of them were high-profile, habitual, hardened and professional criminals.

The report said that hundreds of them either belonged to banned outfits or were involved in a breakdown of law and order in the city.

It added that potential threats were received through various agencies regarding a possible attack on the jail, which could endanger the lives of the inmates as well as innocent citizens living in the vicinity of the prison.

The jail superintendent in his report stated that in view of any such possible terrorist attack and to disperse the high-profile inmates, the Sindh government placed the matter regarding the transfer of prisoners before the SHC chief justice, who passed orders for their transfer from the central prison to other prisons in the province along with their cases, which shall be heard in their respective courts and decided promptly.

Pahari was first arrested in 2000 and booked in several cases, including one related to the killing of four American Union Texas employees along with their Pakistani driver. However, he was acquitted in all the cases within five years and was released in 2005.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play