LAHORE: Police told the Lahore High Court on Thursday that two intelligence agencies had denied having custody of missing anchorperson Imran Riaz Khan.
Kamran Adil, DIG Investigations, told the court during the hearing of a habeas corpus petition filed by the anchorperson’s father that the Military Intelligence and the ISI had denied having arrested the missing anchorperson or that he was in their custody.
The chief justice asked Azhar Siddique, the petitioner’s counsel, not to politicise the matter when he sought permission to make the prime minister, the defence minister and the caretaker chief minister of Punjab a party in the petition.
Chief Justice Ameer Bhatti said he may not be able to hear the case if the counsel tried to make it political. He said the sole concern of the court was to ensure safe recovery of the missing anchorperson.
Petitioner Muhammad Riaz said his son was being victimised only for doing a vlog.
The chief justice lamented that a trend had set in to create social media content carrying startling allegations only to earn money.
“See what the [Holy] Quran says about levelling false allegations on others,” he said.
The chief justice directed the petitioner’s counsel to share with police if he had any information or evidence about the anchorperson.
According to police, they had arrested Imran Riaz on May 11 from Sialkot airport and shifted him to jail.
But the whereabouts of the anchorperson were unknown since his release from jail following the withdrawal of his detention order by the government.
Kamran Adil, the DIG, had appeared before the court on behalf of Punjab’s Inspector General of Police Usman Anwar.
When the DIG stated that the IGP had gone to Gujranwala to attend an event for paying tribute to martyrs, the chief justice directed him to submit a record of the police chief’s visit to the Gujranwala event.
Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2023
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