KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday directed the federal and provincial authorities to file their respective comments on a petition seeking whereabouts of Pakistan Qaumi Movement (PQM) Chairman Syed Iqbal Kazmi, who had announced to take out a rally in which Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain was likely to address the participants.

The missing man’s wife, Shazia Kazmi, and party’s secretary general Mohammad Zahid Maqsood approached the court against the law-enforcement agencies for allegedly detaining Kazmi.

They impleaded home secretary, director general of the Rangers, inspector general of police, DIG Karachi-East, SSP Malir, DSP Malir and SHO of the Sharea Faisal police station as respondents.

The petitioners submitted that Mr Kazmi was on his way on Jan 17 along with his police guard, constable Nabi Bakhsh, when they were intercepted near the airport at around 3pm. They said some police officials in uniform pulled Mr Kazmi and his guard from their car, muffled them and took them away. The law enforcers later released Mr Kazmi’s police guard, the petitioners added.

They stated that since then Mr Kazmi had been missing.

The petitioners said that the detainee had announced to take out a rally from Ayesha Manzil to Mazar-i-Quaid on Jan 21 to ‘unite a divided nation’, including political parties. They said he also had filed a petition seeking permission for the rally after the same had been denied by the relevant authorities.

The petitioners said they contacted the area police but to no avail as the officials at the police station feigned ignorance about the arrest and detention of Mr Kazmi.

They pleaded to the court to direct the respondent authorities to recover and produce the civil rights campaigner in court.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Farooq Shah, also issued a notice to the deputy attorney general, advocate general and the prosecutor general for a date to be later fixed by the court office after two weeks.

Meanwhile, the same bench heard over a dozen petitions seeking whereabouts of “missing men”.

The court expressed grave concern over the growing number of missing person cases.

The bench directed the respondent authorities to expedite their efforts to locate the missing persons.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2017