KARACHI, Jan 18: The Sindh High Court issued notices to law enforcement agencies in a petition for recovery and production of a person picked up for suspected links with Al Qaeda.

Petitioner Shumaila Husain submitted through Advocate Nehal Hashmi that her husband, Mohammad Shafqat, a pharmaceutical sales representative, was taken into custody at a medical store at Karimabad on October 10, 2006. He contacted her and told her on SMS that he had been arrested by ISI personnel.

An officer identifying himself as ‘Major Abdullah’, the petitioner further claimed, brought Shafqat to his house in Sector 11-C, North Karachi, on October 17. Three personnel accompanying the major searched the house and checked his computer and laptop.

They told her that he would be released soon if found to have no links with Al Qaeda or any other militant organisation.

The detainee had neither been freed nor allowed to contact her since, the petitioner said.

Decrying the practice of arresting people without due process of law, a division bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Mrs Yasmeen Abbasy issued notices to all provincial and federal agencies concerned for February 1. —Staff Reporter