HYDERABAD, Jan 4: After more than three years of detention, Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz activists Muzaffar Bhutto and Ashgar Shah were released by the Hyderabad central prison authorities on Sunday.

According to Mr Shah, he was picked up on Feb 20, 2005 by an intelligence agency’s officials in Karachi while Mr Bhutto was apprehended on Oct 6, 2005, also in Karachi.

“I was in a hospital with Samiullah Kalhoro, JSSM’s senior vice-chairman, when I was arrested,” Mr Shah told Dawn.

Mr Kalhoro, an employee of the Sindh University, had escaped from police custody along with Fayyaz Janwari in Hala in 2005 although police had denied having arrested them in connection with the Hyderabad by-pass explosion case. He was later arrested in Karachi and died of alleged torture on March 5, 2005.

Mr Bhutto was arrested in Tariq Road area of Karachi. Mr Shah and Mr Bhutto claimed that they were first interrogated by agency officials in their cells before their custody was handed over to the police so that they could be challaned in fake explosives cases, lodged at different police stations of Sindh.“I was handed over to the police on March 3, 2005 while Muzaffar Bhutto’s custody was given to the police on Nov 7, 2006,” said Mr Shah. He said that they were released to sabotage a reception rally, which was planned for their release on Monday.

“We are among those missing persons whose case was highlighted by media and taken up by apex court,” he said.

They were challaned in seven cases under Explosive Substance Act following incidents on railway tracks in Tando Adam, Sehwan and Hussainabad. The provincial home department had notified their inside trial for security reasons. They were represented by Nisar Durrani advocate in all the cases. They have been acquitted during trial on account of lack of evidence. “There were seven cases, in all, in which my clients have been acquitted,” Durrani said.

After their exoneration in all the cases against them, they were lodged in the central prison under MPO by provincial government for thirty days. The JSMM had been holding province-wide protests ever since the disappearance of Muzaffar Bhutto, Sattar Hakro, Nawaz Khan Zounr, Sikandar Soomro, Asghar Shah and Ahmed Khan Teevno, claiming that they were picked up by intelligence agencies.

In 2005, the Karachi police had shown the arrest of five JSMM activists, including Asghar Shah, for their alleged links with the RAW and involvement in bomb explosions and anti-state activities.