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THATTA, March 23: At the concluding session of a three-day workshop on justice towards juveniles, the district and sessions judge, Thatta, Rashid Ali Mirza, released a 16-year-old boy, Ali Mohammed Chandio, from the Thatta sub-jail, who had been wrongfully confined since the last two months.
The workshop was held under the auspices of the Sindh Journalists Network.
The participants including the representatives of NGOs, Journalist Ismail Memon, Mehboob Ali Brohi, Noshaba Mughal, councillor, and Gul M. Khushik paid a surprise visit to the Thatta police lockup at the end of the workshop and informed the judge about the illegal detention of the boy.
The judge ordered his immediate release.
On the occasion, the prisoners informed the judge about their grievances including not being produced in courts on the dates of hearing by the police.
The participants of the workshop were told that Ali was being kept in the jail since the last two months on the charge of drug trafficking and his poor parents could not afford a lawyer for him.
The district and sessions judge said that drug traffickers were ruthlessly using innocent youths for their vested interests.
He said that human rights activists and journalists should immediately inform the authorities concerned about such atrocities so that something could be done about it.
The judge also took notice of five other people who were being kept in the Thatta sub-jail as loan defaulters without any FIR. He ordered an inquiry regarding it.
HARASSING INNOCENT: Plainclothes police personnel detained four people including two girls in their residential quarters at Dargah Shah Yaqiq, near the coastal town of Chuhar Jamali, and later let them go on getting their palms greased on Saturday.
Amir Memon, one of the victims, told newsmen that he along with his relatives, Rukhsana Parveen, Shama Parveen and M. Tahir Memon, were rounded up by the police as soon as they arrived at the Dargah. The police personnel locked the women in their personnel quarter and the men in the lockup. After three hours they were allowed to go when they gave a large amount of money as bribe to their captors.
No FIR has been lodged at any police station.
Eyewitnesses said that this was the usual practice of the police with the people who visited the area.
TEACHERS: At least 52 teachers have not been paid their salaries since the last four months.
The teachers said trough a press release that they had been appointed after clearing the Sindh Public Service Commission examinations four months ago. However, they had not been paid their salaries by the Education Department on one pretext or another.
They threatened to launch a protest campaign after the 10th of Muharram.
