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PESHAWAR, Jan 28: The NWFP government on Monday withdrew the detention orders against Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad on medical grounds and set him at liberty.
The police, however, shifted the JI leader to Lahore where he is being kept at a private hospital in Jauhar Town. In Peshawar, the Jamaat leader, who has been suffering from heart ailment, was under treatment in the Lady Reading Hospital for the last couple of days.
The Jamaat leader has been under detention since Nov 5. The NWFP government had issued four orders under the MPO for keeping him under detention, stating that his presence outside was “detrimental to public peace and tranquillity”. The last order was issued on Jan 6.
“As the provincial government has allowed shifting of Qazi Hussain Ahmad to Lahore for medical treatment, therefore it has to withdraw the detention order,” said Hakeem Abdul Waheed, the district Amir of the party.
Legally, he pointed out, the detention order of the NWFP government was not effective in Punjab, therefore the government considered it appropriate to withdraw it.
The secretary of the home and tribal affairs department issued a notification under section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance. The NWFP government claimed in the notification that in case the JI chief indulged in any activity prejudicial to maintenance of public order it could again place him under detention.
LAHORE: The JI leader was flown in here from Peshawar and kept under the police custody at a private hospital at Jauhar Town. SSP Aftab Cheema told Dawn that the JI leader was detained under a previous case registered against him in 1999. He gave no details of the case.
Describing the detention as “unlawful”, the JI claimed that its Amir had been transferred to Lahore because the NWFP government had given an undertaking in the Supreme Court (Islamabad) to withdraw its detention orders against him.
A good number of the JI activists and leaders were present outside the airport to greet their Amir. But none was permitted to enter the premises and the leader was removed to the hospital through the Haj terminal.
JI leaders Aslam Saleemi and Amirul Azeem also travelled with the Qazi from Peshawar to Lahore.
ISLAMABAD: The Jamaat chief here on Monday declared: “We are determined to continue our movement and nothing can deter us from our determination”.
He was speaking to party workers at the Chaklala airport before embarking on a Lahore-bound PIA flight. Earlier, he was brought by the Frontier police under tight security from Peshawar and handed over to the Punjab police.
A party leader, Mansoor Jafer, said that the party would consider moving the court against the NWFP government for mocking its own commitment of setting the JI leader free and then putting him into Punjab police’s custody.
