KARACHI: The Sindh High Court directed on Wednesday the provincial home department to file a comprehensive report regarding the record and reasons of prisoners’ release on parole.

Human rights activist Ansar Burney moved the SHC and submitted that around 35 “hardcore” undertrial prisoners were released on parole in 2015 and the record was missing.

The petitioner further contended that besides the UTPs, convicted prisoners were also set free in 2005 and 2003, adding that he approached the authorities concerned for taking action against the officials responsible, but to no avail.

He requested the court to call a complete report about the release of the prisoners as well as the reasons of setting them free on parole from all the prisons of the province from 2002 till now and also sought directive for their re-arrest.

A focal person of the home department also turned up before the court.

A two-judge bench of SHC headed by Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar directed the home department to place a complete report about the release of prisoners and reasons behind their release before the court on May 23.

Missing persons’ cases

Meanwhile, the same bench on Wednesday expressed resentment over the absence of a police officer in a case pertaining to a missing person.

When the division bench, hearing dozens of missing persons’ petitions, took up the cases on Wednesday, DSP Raja Tariq was found absent and another police officer said that he was on medical leave.

The court expressed displeasure over the absence of the DSP and some other officials and observed that they were doing nothing for the recovery of the missing persons.

The bench directed the DSP to submit a report of a joint investigation team, constituted to look into the whereabouts of Jamil, alias Anil, allegedly picked up by the law enforcement agencies from Lyari in January last year, on May 10. The court also directed the DSP to turn up along with a medical certificate.

The mother of the ‘detainee’, who is also the petitioner, broke into tears during the hearing and alleged that the police were demanding money, but she was working as housemaid to earn a living and could not pay a bribe.

The bench also issued notices to respondents on a number of fresh identical petitions, including the petition of a woman, who submitted that her two sons were picked up from their house in Gulshan-i-Iqbal last month.

Conviction set aside

The same bench on Wednesday set aside a conviction order of a trial court and acquitted three persons in a case pertaining to the kidnapping and murder of a customs clearing agent.

An antiterrorism court had sentenced Mohsin Raza to death and awarded life term to his wife Shazia, Adnan Hyder and Nazia in 2011 after finding them guilty of kidnapping Sohrab Khan in June 2008 within the remit of the Gulbahar police station for ransom and then killing the captive. Later, the convicts challenged the conviction before the SHC while Nazia died during captivity.

The two-judge bench observed that the body was found in an isolated place and there was no source of independent corroboration, adding that both the eyewitnesses were interested witnesses, which means that they were relatives, and they failed to bring on record anything about their presence at the place of incident.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2018