KARACHI, Sept 10: The Sindh High Court adjourned further hearing of a petition alleging illegal arrest and detention of two sons of a deceased member of the Sindh Assembly, Anwar Afzal, till Sept 24 to enable the federal and provincial attorneys to ascertain their whereabouts.
Deputy Attorney-General Syed Zaki Mohammad informed Chief Justice Syed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, who constituted the division bench hearing the petition, that he had made prompt inquiries as asked by the court.
According to the initial response received by him, the alleged detainees, Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal, were not apparently in the custody of a federal agency but efforts were being made to trace them. He needed more time for a definitive statement.
Additional Advocate-General Sarwar Khan stated that the inquiries made by him revealed that the detainees were not being kept in confinement by the Karachi police. Advocate Chaudhry Iqbal, the petitioner mother's counsel, submitted that the detainees might have been kept outside the Karachi range in some other district.
Petitioner Nuzhat Afzal has alleged that Zain and Kashan were picked up by "some people dressed in police uniform" from their residence on Aug 13. They had not been seen or heard of since, she said.
BAIL GRANTED: Justice Azizullah Memon, meanwhile, enlarged two alleged activists of the outlawed Harkatul Mujahideen Al Alami on bail subject to their furnishing sureties for Rs100,000 each.
Rozi Khan and Ghulam Mohammad were arrested by the police in May at Goth Saeedullah, Saeedabad, Karachi, and about 178 kilograms of explosive substances were recovered on their disclosure. They told the police that they had hidden the explosives in a deserted house in the area. The explosive material was recovered by the police from the house.
State counsel Kumail Shirazi conceded that there was no mention in police papers of any sanction given to the investigation agency for prosecution of the accused as required by the Explosive Substances Act.
Sanction was a condition precedent to prosecution under the Act, he said. Without going into the merits of case, the court admitted the accused to bail in the sum of Rs 100,000 each.
PRODUCTION ORDERED: Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro ordered the production of a woman serving life term for killing her husband in complicity with her alleged paramour along with her minor son on Sept 15.
Ghazala Yasmin and Saleem alias Suleman were convicted by a sessions court under Sections 302 and 201/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code for killing her husband, Shahid. They were sentenced to life imprisonment and fined Rs 50,000 each. They challenged their conviction and sentence in the high court.
According to the prosecution, the appellants were arrested when the landlady of the house rented by Shahid in Zaman Town found his body buried under a newly-raised platform in her house. She got the platform dug when she broke open the lock of the house following mysterious disappearance of Shahid.
ALLIANCE MOTORS: Justice Shabbir Ahmed, meanwhile, adjourned the hearing of a reference filed by the SHC official assignee as liquidator of the collapsed Alliance Motors and TJ Ebrahim and Company to Sept 17 and asked their owner-directors to engage a lawyer in the meanwhile.
Mohammad Tayyab and Mohammad Ebrahim, who are accused of fraudulently depriving a large number of depositors of their savings by promising exorbitant profits, were produced in the court on Friday. They contended that about 60 deposit managers employed by them were directly and primarily responsible for the investors' woes.
They recorded the particulars of investors, the amount deposited by them and the profits received by them. The problems in refunding the stuck-up deposits were arising because of misleading entries made by the deposit managers in the record, they alleged.