KARACHI: The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) on Friday assured the Sindh High Court (SHC) that the debris littering the historical Jahangir Park in Saddar would be removed by Oct 15.

The assurance came when an SHC bench headed by Justice Nadeem Akhter was hearing identical petitions filed by citizens, including Naeemur Rehman, who sought rehabilitation of Jahangir Park and removal of encroachments.

In Friday’s hearing, the petitioner declared that he was pressing the application only to get the debris lifted from the park. The KMC’s counsel assured the bench that the debris would be cleared by Oct 15 and a compliance report with photographs would be submitted to the court. The court later adjourned the hearing to Oct 19.

Earlier, residential quarters and other forms of encroachment were removed from the park’s land on the court order but heaps of garbage were still littering the place.

The petitioners said the park which was gifted to the people of Karachi in 1893 by a Parsi philanthropist, Khan Behramjee, had turned into a haven for drug pushers due to negligence of administration.

They asked the court to direct the administration to remove encroachments, bus stands and other obstacles from around the park and pass an order for its rehabilitation.

Notices issued to DG Rangers, IGP over missing persons

The Sindh High Court on Friday issued notices to the director general of Sindh Rangers, inspector general of police, Sindh, and home secretary, directing them to submit comments on petitions seeking the whereabouts of certain missing persons.

The SHC bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan took up identical petitions filed by relatives, seeking recovery of missing men, Abdul Razzaq, Yamin and Mohammad Asif Khan.

The petitioners accused law-enforcers of detaining their loved ones.

Mubarra Razzaq, wife of Abdul Razzaq, said that her husband was picked up by Rangers personnel near the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases in Federal B. Area on Sept 8.

She said that they had approached the Yousuf Plaza police station but police were not cooperating with them. Whereabouts of her husband were still unknown, she said.

Aurangzaib, brother of Yameen, informed the court that his brother was picked up by personnel of law enforcement agencies in a late night raid when he was sleeping at his home in New Karachi on Sept 8.

He said that he sought help from police and tried his best to find his brother but in vain. The family had not been informed about the whereabouts of Yameen since the day of his arrest, he added.

Similarly, Zaitoon, wife of Asif Khan, said that her husband had been missing since Sept 9th. She alleged that her spouse was picked up by personnel of Rangers when he went to North Nazimabad to drop his daughter at her school.

All the petitioners maintained that their relatives were arrested by law-enforcers who were not disclosing their whereabouts. The court was asked to direct the respondents to produce the detainees before the court.

After the initial hearing, the court issued notices to the deputy attorney general, advocate general, Sindh, and asked the respondents to file comments on the next hearing.

Published in Dawn September 24th, 2016