PESHAWAR, April 8 The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday took exception to the highhandedness of police in different cases and directed them to remain careful in future otherwise strict action would be taken against them.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Jehanzeb Raheem and Justice Syed Mussadiq Hussain Gillani reprimanded two station house officers (SHOs) of Peshawar and the district police officer of Charssada for misleading the court in a case and harassing a citizen on behest of the NWFP home secretary, respectively.

In one of the cases a petitioner, Kausar Khan, had challenged the alleged illegal detention of his brother, Aman Khan, under section 40 of the Frontier Crimes Regulation. He claimed that the detained person was arrested by the police and was illegally charged under the FCR.

“You people shall be ashamed of your conduct. You are lying before the court in uniform,” Justice Jehanzeb Raheem observed while admonishing SHOs -- Fazal Wahid Banaras Khan -- for lying before the bench that they had not arrested the detained person.

The bench ordered that contempt of court notice should be issued to both of them. However, NWFP Advocate General Ziaur Rehman came to the rescue of the two officials and requested that they might be spared. He stated that due to precarious law and order situation in the country police officials were under constraint.

The bench observed that keeping in view the prevalent condition in the country they would forgive the officials this time but they would not be speared in future.

The bench observed that there should be someone for checking the gross violation of law. “Because of this conduct you people now remain confined to the police stations and could not come out,” Justice Jehanzeb Raheem observed.

The petitioner's counsel Jalaluddin Gara claimed that the detained person was arrested by the officials of Tatara police station in Oct last on charges of kidnapping for ransom. However, he added that the kidnapped person stated that he was not kidnapped by the detainee following which he was granted bail by the anti terrorism court.

He stated that when the petitioner went to prison for the release of the detained person they were informed that he was sent to prison under the FCR by the assistant political agent of Jamrud.

Interesting situation emerged when the petitioner's counsel Jalaluddin Gara, produced a document carrying signature of the APA wherein it was mentioned that the detainee was innocent. However, the counsel for the administration, Iqbal Durrani, contradicted that document stating that it was forged.

Similarly, the SHOs said that they had not handed over the detained persons to the tribal administration.

Justice Jehanzed Raheem ordered that the APA should forthwith appear before the court so as to verify the authenticity of the document.