KARACHI: A magistrate on Wednesday raided the SITE Superhighway Industrial Area police station and recovered a woman and her two children apparently kept there in wrongful detention.

Judicial Magistrate Asif Raza Mir got the detainee, Mariyam, and her two sons, aged four and six years, released on a personal bond since the police were unable to justify her detention.

He also directed the station house officer and station investigation officer (SIO), Inspector Shakoor, to appear before the district and sessions court (Malir) on Thursday (today).

The magistrate along with applicant Manzoor Ahmed and his lawyer raided the police station and found the women in the room of the SIO.

Court officials said the police failed to produce any FIR against the woman or an entry in the daily dairy regarding her arrest.

However, Inspector Shakoor claimed that the woman was brought to the police station for questioning in a murder case a little before the magistrate’s raid. But, the daily dairy was silent about this.

The applicant, through his lawyer, moved a habeas corpus application under Section 491 of the Criminal Procedure Code submitting that the police raided his house in Ahsanabad and picked up his wife along with his minor sons a couple of days ago.

He maintained that the police kept them in wrongful confinement and demanded a bribe against their release. The applicant asked the court for their recovery.

After a preliminary hearing, the district and sessions judge (Malir) appointed the magistrate as the raid commissioner directing him to carry out a raid on the information to be provided by the applicant and recover the detainees if found in wrongful confinement.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2017