3 men missing after midnight police raid

Family claims victims were apolitical, quit Tableeghi Jamaat after father’s death

SUKKUR: A family from Nusrat Colony, old Sukkur has accused the police of taking away three of its men in a midnight raid. Hundreds of people protested against the authorities outside the press club on Friday.

The protest was led by Rasheed Siddiqui, Hoorun’nisa Siddiqui, Khalid Siddiqui, Saima Siddiqui. They blocked traffic for a while.

Hoorun’nisa Siddiqui told journalists that early Thursday morning a heavy contingent of police and men from a secret agency raided and cordoned off their house. They arrested her three sons Mohammad Ali, Ahmed Ali and Shoukat Ali. She said that more than 24 hours had passed and no law-enforcing agency was accepting that the men were in their custody.

According to the boys’ sister Saima, the family was religious, her brothers owned a general store and did not have anything to do with any political or religious party.

She added, however, that five years ago they used to go on proselytising missions with the Tableeghi Jamaat. But after their father’s death they set up a general store and kept busy with it.

Their mother said that if nothing was done by Sunday, she would file a constitutional petition in the Sindh High Court’s Sukkur bench.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2010.