MULTAN, July 9: The Lahore High Court nullified on Friday the detention orders of four PPP activists which were issued by the Punjab home secretary.

Malik Asad, Rao Sajid, Hashim Babar and Ishrat Abbas were among the 15 PPP workers who were charged under Section 341 PPC and 16 MPO last month for intercepting the vehicle of Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz near the Multan Press Club to launch a 'Kissan Credit Card' here.

The PPP workers were already protesting there against the killing of Munawwar Soharwardi in Karachi when the minister's motorcade passed by. After registration of a case, police arrested Asad, Rao Sajid, Hashim and Ishrat while the rest of the nominated accused, including former federal minister Malik Mukhtar Awan and Punjab Bar Council member Habibullah Shakir secured pre-arrest bails.

On June 29, a court granted bails of the four detained activists and confirmed the bails of the others. However, the police re-arrested the four on the orders of home department for a period of one month.

They challenged their detention through advocates Maulvi Sultan Alam Ansari, Arif Alvi and Habibullah Shakir. Defending the detention orders, Advocate General Asad Jehangir pleaded that under MPO-3 the petitioners should first have given presentation to the home secretary before moving the court.

He cited the case of Sheikh Rashid vs Rawalpindi district magistrate" (14839/94) to support his arguments. In the referred case, the high court had agreed to the arguments offered by the then AG that the petitioner should first seek clearance of the home department.

The petitioners' lawyers, however, contradicted AG Jehangir's arguments stating that their clients were granted bail by the court on the charges for which they were arrested, therefore, they could not be detained further on the same charge.

They argued that in the Sheikh Rashid case the DM had issued detention orders under MPO-3 but after the devolution plan the office of DM had ceased to exist and now no one had powers at the district level to order detentions under MPO.

They said there arose no question of a presentation before the home secretary in the matter when the same office had issued the 'illegal' detention orders. Justice Khalid Alvi agreed to their arguments and ordered release of the four PPP activists.