LAHORE, March 20: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday took strong notice of a human trafficker's escape from the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and directed an agency official to produce the fugitive within two days.

The court remarked that the agency could only harass humble people but had no guts to nab toughs.

Addressing FIA inspector Shahbaz Ahmad, present in the court, the judge said it appeared that the accused was facilitated in his escape.

Razia Bibi had filed a petition saying accused Safdar Nadeem sent her son, Usman, to Greece against a payment of Rs750,000. She alleged the accused was running a gang of human traffickers who took forced labour from their clients after sending them to Greece.

They were also subjecting Usman to forced labour and not allowing him to contact his family in Pakistan, she alleged. She requested the court to order the FIA to arrest the accused so that her son could be brought back to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the court also issued contempt of court notices to the Gujranwala city division SP and the Dhally station house officer in a girl's recovery case from alleged custody of a pir (spiritual healer).

The court directed them to file written replies and explain their position by March 27.

Ghulam Rasool filed a habeas corpus petition for the recovery of his daughter from the custody of Pir Inam Husain Shah. He said the family had taken his daughter, Amina, to the pir for spiritual healing but his men abducted her.

He said the police had not made any progress in the case since the registration of an FIR on April 27, 2011.

On Tuesday, the SP told the court that a special team, on a tip-off, had been sent to Karachi for the recovery of the girl. However, his statement was proved faked when he failed to name the team members.

This act of the office irked the judge who issued contempt of court notices to him and the SHO as well. Report sought:

The Lahore High Court on Tuesday sought a report from the election commission of Punjab on a petition seeking disqualification of PML-N MNA Rao Mazhar Hayat from Kasur on charges of having a bogus degree.

Arbab Jahangir filed the petition and stated that the respondent contested the general election from NA 138-Kasur and won. At the time of filing nomination papers, the petitioner said, the respondent had submitted his BSc degree of an institute in America.

He said after the Supreme Court directed the election commission to verify degrees of the parliamentarians, the degree of the respondent was proved bogus as the American institute did not recognise the degree possessed by Hayat.

The petitioner said the election commission also lodged an FIR against the respondent MNA but was not issuing a disqualification notification. He prayed to the court to direct the EC to issue the disqualification notification.

Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh, after hearing the contention, sought a reply from the commission within a month.