HYDERABAD, July 16: A young boy appealed on Sunday to the president and chief justices of the Supreme Court and Sindh High court to help find his father whose whereabouts he said were not known since he was picked up from his home by law-enforcement personnel on July 12.

Speaking at a news conference at the Hyderabad Press Club, Suresh Kumar, who was accompanied by his younger siblings Jeth Anand, Jatindar, Kamlesh and Meena Bai, said that eight armed men had barged into their house in Umerkot at 6:45 pm on July 12.

They manhandled him and his father, Chetan Bajeer, and then drove away with his father in a white coloured government vehicle with a registration plate GS-0162 number, he said.

Suresh said that he rushed to police and requested them to register an FIR but they refused on grounds that his father had been picked up by agencies.

He said that the Tando Adam police had arrested his father in 2001 on charges of terrorism under an FIR No254. He was released in December 2005 after the Sindh High Court declared him innocent. The torture his father was subjected to during detention damaged both of his kidneys.

He feared that his father might be challaned in a false case for the second time or killed in a fake police encounter.

When his father was first arrested, his grandfather took it to his heart and died, he said. His disappearance this time had worsened his grandmother’s condition, he said. Suresh lamented that they were being harassed and terrorised again and again because they belonged to minority.