HYDERABAD, July 21: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Friday issued notices to home secretary, IGP Sindh, DIG Mirpurkhas, DPO operations, Umerkot and the SHO of Umerkot police station over a constitutional petition by Suresh Kumar seeking recovery of his father who, he said, had been picked up by personnel of law-enforcement agencies.

Mr Suresh said that he and his father, Chetan Kumar, were in the drawing room of their house in Umerkot on July 12 when suddenly eight armed men barged into the room.

They subjected them to severe torture before dragging away the father from the room to a government vehicle with GS-0162 number and blue hooter lights parked outside their house. They thrust him into the vehicle and drove away, he said.

Mr Suresh said that he rushed to the police station and asked them to file an FIR about his father’s kidnapping but the SHO refused arguing that his father had been picked up by personnel of law-enforcement agencies.

The petitioner said that his father had been implicated in a false case vide FIR no 254/02 under section 25 of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, registered with Tando Adam police in which the high court acquitted the co-accused on December 15, 2005 and later declared his father innocent.

Mr Suresh said that his father’s first arrest took a heavy toll on his grandfather who died of heart attack from the grief and now his disappearance for the second time had badly affected his grandmother’s health.

He said that despite the fact that his father was not involved in any criminal case no one had produced him before any magistrate to obtain remand for keeping him in detention.

He said that he had sent applications to higher authorities including the president and informed them that his father was a heart patient and passed blood with urine.

He expressed the fear that the illegal detention might prove too much for his father and he might lose his life. He might be subjected to mental and physical torture or weapons, drugs or explosives might be ‘recovered’ from him, he feared.

Mr Suresh said that the SHO and DPO of Umerkot were threatening him with implication in in false criminal cases if he approached the court. Besides, the SHO had deployed police in plainclothes around his house to keep an eye on him and his family, he said.

He prayed the court to direct the respondents to disclose his father’s whereabouts, produce him before the court and set him free after recording his statement and requested to restrain the SHO and DPO of Umerkot from harassing him and his family members.