HYDERABAD: Family members and other relatives of two missing brothers held a demonstration outside the Hyderabad SSP office on Saturday for their recovery.

Carrying placards and pictures of Mairaj Ahmed and Ghulam Mohammed, they raised slogans for their immediate “release” claiming that they were victims of “enforced disappearance”.

Residents of Industries Colony located in Qasimabad, the two brothers were said to have been taken away by law-enforcers in plain clothes.

Their third brother, Mukhtiar Ahmed, told the media at the protest demonstration that Mairaj was whisked away on May 17 from his residence by plainclothes personnel who drove up to his house in a double-cabin vehicle and told him to accompany them as they wanted to talk to him over some matter. Mairaj accompanied them and since then his whereabouts had not been known to the family, he said, adding that they approached the Qasimabad police to know if he was arrested but received no response. Later, a petition on his enforced disappearance was filed in the Sindh High Court, he said.

Mr Ahmed said that a police team riding three/four mobile vans drove to their house at around 2.30am on Saturday and took away his other brother, Ghulam Mohammed. He said that his whereabouts also remained unknown till late the evening.

He urged the authorities concerned to look into the matter and help the family ascertain their whereabouts and the charges on which they were picked up or arrested. He said the victims should be produced in a court of law if they had allegedly committed any offence.

Mr Ahmed informed the media that Mairaj had served in a social club situated within the city but nowadays both brothers had been running their grocery shop near their house within Industries Colony.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2016