ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has been asked to intervene and take notice of the treatment meted out to a student who disappeared, was believed to have been “killed in an encounter” with security forces, then was mysteriously resurrected and has now been awarded a death sentence by a military court for his alleged involvement in acts of terrorism.

The petition has been moved by Advocate Inamul Raheim, a lawyer who had been pursuing the cases of missing persons. The petition asks that the conduct of the security agencies, which has created mistrust, unrest and fear among the general public, be examined.

The victim, Aksan Mehboob, his lawyer claimed, had a brilliant academic record before he went missing from Lahore on July 14 2014. Despite their best efforts, his parents were unable to establish his whereabouts.

On July 18, 2014, they received the shock of their life when they came to know through the media that Mehboob had been killed in an encounter near Raiwind, along with another terrorist who allegedly belonged to Al Qaeda.

Police then raided Mehboob’s house, but nothing suspicious was found. His parents, meanwhile, kept asking for their son’s body to be handed over to them.

Aksan Mehboob was allegedly arrested, ‘killed in encounter’, and then sentenced to death by military court

Initially, law enforcement agencies refused, but later assured them that the body would be handed over to them after due process.

However, on July 22, 2014, security agencies changed their stand after Mehboob’s parents read in an Urdu newspaper that their son was alive and well in the custody of Military Intelligence. They then approached the authorities again, seeking a meeting with their son, but were not allowed to do so.

On Jan 1, 2016, they received another shock when they came to know, through an ISPR press release, that their son had been awarded the death sentence by a military court for “attacking the law enforcement agencies by using fire-arms which resulted in death/injuries to soldiers.”

The ISPR statement claimed that he had “admitted his offences before the magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on four charges and awarded the death sentence”. It was also announced that his sentence had been confirmed by the chief of army staff.

According to the petition, Mehboob’s mother Mussarrat Bibi also appealed to GHQ to ascertain the whereabouts of her son, to no avail.

The changing position of security agencies on the status of Aksan Mehboob shows mala fide intentions on part of the security agencies, the petition argues.

Mehboob, the petition state, stood first in the matriculation exams from Okara District in November 2011 and obtained an A grade with 859 marks in the intermediate exam. He was also awarded a merit certificate, issued by the Punjab chief minister.

Though he came from a poor family, he worked hard and was selected for the Punjab Educational Endowment Programme for deserving students. The scholarship allowed him to enrol at Lahore’s University of Education, where he had completed two semesters of his BS Honours degree, securing more than 80 per cent marks.

The petition alleged that the entire process, from his arrest to the death sentence, was faked, falsified and fabricated in violation of the Pakistan Army Act (PAA) 1952, as well as articles 4, 9, 10 and 10 A of the Constitution.

Mehboob, who is a civilian not subject to the PAA, was not given a fair trial, since neither his family nor his relatives had a clue as to his whereabouts or any information about the trial, the petition argued.

Under Section 133(b) of PAA, an appeal against a conviction should be filed within 40 days. But since the record of proceedings was not available to the family, nor did they have access to their son, the family was being denied the right to appeal.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2016