KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday put the provincial chief secretary, home secretary and the director-general of the Rangers on a petition filed by Mohajir Qaumi Movement (Haqiqi) chief Afaq Ahmed, who sought provision of security to him by the paramilitary troops for at least six month on his release.

The petition was filed by the interned Haqiqi chairman and Human Rights Commission for South Asia representative Syed Iqbal Kazmi, who also sought the court’s direction for the rehabilitation and resettlement of 9,250 party workers and supporters rendered displaced as certain localities had become no-go areas for them.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Mushir Alam also issued notices to the chief law officer of Sindh and put off the hearing to a date to be later fixed by the court’s office.

The petitioners submitted that the MQM-H had been politically victimised for the past nine years by the present and previous governments. They said that the party chief and over 1,100 workers were incarcerated in prisons.

The petitioners said that over 379 MQM-H activists had been killed over the years and the provincial government had imposed an unannounced ban on the party’s political activities.

They stated that the party’s central office, Baitul Hamza, was sealed on Feb 22, 2003 and since then the party was not practically allowed to continue its political activities.

The petitioners prayed to the court to direct the Rangers to provide protection to the MQM-H chief as he was likely to be implicated in more case after his release. They also requested the court to direct the Rangers and other intelligence agencies to keep the MQM-H chairman’s movement under observation and submit their reports in this regard to the member of the inspection team of the high court.

‘Missing’ persons caseThe Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued a contempt notice to the commanding officer of the Panu Aqil cantonment in one of the cases pertaining to ‘missing’ persons fixed for the day.A division bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam also expressed displeasure and dissatisfaction over the conduct of the official authorities and functionaries in dealing with the cases of ‘missing’ persons.

The bench issued the contempt notice after a federal law officer informed the court that no report had so far been received from the defence secretary and the commanding officer of the Panu Aqil cantonment regarding the whereabouts of Qari Haq Nawaz, who had been missing since Jan 24.

Petitioner Syed Sakhab Mian, the father of the missing young man, submitted in court that his son left the home on Jan 24 to board a Battagram-bound bus but when he reached the bus terminal, he was intercepted by law-enforcement agency personnel, who took him away.

On Sept 28, the high court had ordered the Panu Aqil commanding officer to submit a report explaining whether the missing man was in their custody.

The same bench, during the hearing of another petition seeking the whereabouts of a missing man, had observed that the law-enforcement agencies did not cooperate with the police in investigations.

The bench was irked when a petitioner, Nafees Ahmed Qidwai, stated that his son, Azib Imtiaz Qidwai, had returned but he was under severe mental shock and shattered to the extent that he was not in a position to divulge any information about his captors.

The bench ordered: “We would let this petition to a date after two months when it is expected that Azib Imtiaz Qidwai will recover, otherwise we would have disposed of the petition. We have cognizance of the fact that merely sweeping dust under the carpet is not serving any purpose. It is expected that the law-enforcing agencies would be mindful of their responsibilities and duties not only to this country but to every citizen of Pakistan”.

The bench observed that some investigation was to be made by the investigating institutions to identify the reasons for disappearance of persons.

In a majority of the cases of missing persons, the Rangers filed comments denying to have arrested any of the missing persons.

The bench put off the hearing of all cases of missing persons to Nov 16 directing the provincial and federal law officers to call comments from other law-enforcement agencies by the next date.