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KARACHI, Dec 20: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday disposed of three detention matters when it was informed on Wednesday that the alleged detainees have since returned home.
A division bench comprising Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Mohammad Athar Saeed also wanted to dispose of the petition against Jamhoori Watan Party acting president Salim Baloch’s confinement but his counsel, Noor Naz Agha, submitted that it be kept pending to enable her client to make a statement about the circumstance of his arrest and treatment during his detention.
The bench allowed the request and adjourned the case to December 20 for hearing along with six other petitions fixed for Wednesday, including that of Munir Ahmed Mengal, chief executive of the Dubai-based TV channel ‘Baloch Voice’. Other petitions had to be adjourned as the director of the federal interior ministry’s Crisis Management Cell, who was summoned on the previous date, failed to appear on Wednesday.
The detainees who have been released are Abdur Rauf Sasoli, Deputy Secretary, JWP, Saeed Brohi, Secretary Karachi chapter, JWP, and Brahim Swaleh, a property dealer suspected of transacting deals involving the Baloch nationalists. Salim Baloch, who appeared in the court, said he was tortured in custody and would like to bring the excesses committed by the agencies involved in his detention on record. He said false affidavits were filed in the court in respect of his arrest and detention.
Representing other petitioners, Advocates Rasheed A. Razvi and Abdul Hafeez Lakho said it was obvious that official disclaimers during the proceedings were incorrect.
A federal government law officer told the Supreme Court that three of the detainees were ‘free now’. The statement implies that the detainees had been in custody but were ‘free now’.
GUANTANAMO PRISONER: A division bench comprising Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah issued notices to the interior, foreign and cabinet secretaries in a petition filed by the wife of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, Majid Khan, and restrained the agencies from harassing the petitioner.
Petitioner Rabia Yaqub, Majid’s wife, submitted through Advocate Nisar A. Mujahid that her husband was picked up by unknown persons from his Gulistan-i-Jauhar flat along with other members of his family in March 2003. All of them except Majid were released after a couple of months. She received anonymous messages on phone not to agitate Majid’s ‘disappearance’ and that he would return in due course.
On the occasion of Eidul Azha in October, she received Eid greetings from her husband from the Guantanamo Bay prison through the International Committee of Red Cross. It was only from the greeting card that she learnt that her husband had not only been taken abroad but was imprisoned in the US prison on a Cuban island. She alleged that Majid must have been seized and handed over to the US authorities by Pakistani officials, who should be made to account for their actions. Issuing notices to the respondents for January 11, 2007, the bench asked them to submit their comments on the petition.
