LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday directed the police to recover the allegedly abducted brother of former PTI leader Usman Dar within 24 hours.

Usman Dar filed a habeas corpus petition against the alleged illegal detention of his brother, Umar Dar, by law enforcement agencies.

At the outset of the hearing, the petitioner’s counsel urged the court to immediately summon the CCPO Lahore. He stated that the petitioner’s broth­­er had gone to a private hotel for dinner the previous night. The counsel alleged that more than 40 individuals in police uniform abducted the petitioner’s brother from the hotel.

He further mentioned that the mother of the abducted man was contesting elections against Khwaja Muhammad Asif of PML-N from Sialkot, claiming that the petitioner’s family was being targeted on political grounds.

Justice Ali Baqar Najafi asked the petitioner’s cou­nsel if the CCTV footage of the alleged abduction incident was recorded.

The lawyer responded that the hotel managem­e­­nt was not providing them with the footage. The jud­ge ordered the CCPO Lahore to recover Umar Dar with­­in a day or appear in pers­­o­­­­­­n if recovery was not made.

Earlier, the PTI and the Dar family accused PML-N’s Khawaja Asif of “engineering” the incident to weaken the Dar family’s position in the upcoming elections.

In a video posted on PTI’s X handle, Umar Dar’s mother appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakis­tan to intervene and take notice of the situation.

Mansoor Malik also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2023