LAHORE, July 1: A petition was filed with the Lahore High Court on Tuesday for the recovery of PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif’s brother-in-law, Mian Ilyas Meraj.

The petition for habeas corpus was filed by Mr Meraj’s nephew, Waqas Riaz, who alleged that his uncle had been illegally detained since June 29, and his whereabouts were not known.

The Punjab IGP, the Lahore SSP and both the federal and provincial governments have been made respondents in the petition, which is likely to be taken up for hearing on Wednesday.

The petitioner’s counsel, Mansoor Ali Shah, argued that the detenue was a businessman of good repute besides being the chief editor of a weekly magazine. During their recent drive for the deportation of five family members of Shahbaz Sharif, the authorities concerned raided the house of Mian Meraj Din and took him into custody, he said.

It was claimed that neither a case had been registered against Mr Meraj nor was he required by the police in any case. The counsel acknowledged that though his client was in litigation with the Sharif family over certain corporate affairs, he had no concern with the activities of Sharifs. “No action proposed to be taken against the Sharif family can have anything to do with the detenue, who is not part of the family. His illegal detention is violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed to him by the 1973 constitution,” Mr Mansoor pleaded.

The counsel further submitted that there had been no active links between the Meraj family and the Sharif family since the division of Ittefaq Group in early 1990s. The detenue was said to be in poor health, and the petitioner feared that his business might also suffer if the illegal detention continued.