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KARACHI, Jan 29: An ex-judge of the Lahore High Court, who was acquitted by an additional district and sessions judge, South, on Aug 20, 2007, in a forged documents case, is still behind bars.
Dr Ghulam Mustafa Ismail Qazi, a former ad-hoc judge of the Lahore High Court and also the husband of an army captain, Dr Mubarika, who was killed in Siachen 18 years ago, has been behind bars for the last 17 years, apparently because his case file had disappeared in police custody. Though he has been acquitted, the jail authorities have neither released Dr Qazi nor transferred him or handed him over to the authorities concerned since he is also facing some cases in Punjab.
Defence counsel Dilip Kumar Ladhani told Dawn that there was only one case in Sindh against Dr Qazi, in which he was acquitted in August of last year, but the jail authorities have neither released him nor transferred him to Rawalpindi or Multan, where he is facing similar cases.
Dr Qazi, a PhD in Arabic, was charged with his involvement in a forged documents case. A case (FIR 119/92) against him was registered by the CIA police at the Clifton police station in 1992 under Sections 420, 468, 170, 471, 472, 473, and 474 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The FIR was lodged by a former deputy secretary to the chief minister of Sindh, Ata Mohammad Memon, alleging that Dr Qazi had used forged documents and signatures of the then chief minister.
His counsel said that Dr Qazi was facing similar cases in four different courts of Multan and Rawalpindi, which he wanted to be heard in a single court, preferably in Islamabad.
His only son, Mubarak, who was just one-and-a-half years old when Dr Qazi was arrested, had been left with no proper care and went missing after the death of his mother and incarceration of his father. The father desperately tried to locate the toddler from jail but nobody helped.
Dr Qazi’s father, Akhund Mohammad Ismail Qazi, had served as a vice-chancellor of the Islamia University, Bahawalpur. He was inducted into the ministry of foreign affairs during the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government and was also appointed ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
V for vendetta?
The defence counsel said that his client was falsely implicated in different cases and his political opponents wanted him to waste his life in prison and for this purpose they had lodged cases in different provinces.
“The cases had actually been lodged by a group of influential people who wanted to ruin his life and there is no law for transferring such cases from one province to another, so the accused in such cases spend most of their lives behind bars,” he added.
Giving the details of the other cases lodged against Dr Qazi, the defence counsel said that two cases (FIRs 12/86 & 13/86) were registered at the FIA (special investigation unit) in Rawalpindi under Sections 17, 18 and 22 of the Passport Act for allegedly sending people abroad through illegal means, while two other cases (FIRs 49/85 & 4/87) were registered with the FIA police in Multan under the same sections of the Passport Act. He said the maximum punishments in these cases were five years, while his client had served 17 years behind bars.
The superintendent of the District Jail Malir, when contacted, told Dawn that the transfer orders of the accused to the jail concerned have been issued and a requisition in this regard has also been sent to the police department.
“The transfer of the accused to the authorities concerned has been delayed since the required police force was not available due to tight security arrangements on Ashura. But now, the accused will be shifted soon to the relevant authorities,” he said.
