MULTAN, April 19: The Lahore High Court, Multan Bench, has directed the jail authorities to facilitate meetings of incarcerated PPP activists with their families. The court directed the superintendents of central jails of Multan and Mianwali to arrange rendezvous of the detained people in the light of the list of their relatives prepared by the assistant advocate-general.

The court passed the order on writ petitions filed against the detention of PPP leaders Ahmad Mukhtar, former Multan mayor Salauddin Dogar, Khalid Hanif Lodhi, Manzoor Qadri, Javed Iqbal Hashmi, Irfan Shaikh and Rao Sajid Mahmood. They were detained on the orders of the home secretary before the arrival of Asif Zardari.

Their counsel argued that the home department orders viz-a-viz detention of the PPP activists were meaningless, malicious and without any corroborative evidence.

The AAG pleaded that the petitioners could move a representation against their detention before the home secretary. However, the petitioners’ counsel counter-argued that in the times of district magistracy the representation against the detention orders passed under the Maintenance of Public Order could be made before the home secretary, but now the latter himself was a party.

After hearing arguments from both sides, the court admitted the petitions for hearing and issued a notice to the Punjab government to submit its reply by April 26 through the AAG.