Dr Asim Hussain’s aide picked up by Rangers

KARACHI:

Just days after arresting Dr Asim Hussain, a close confidante of former president Asif Ali Zardari, the paramilitary Rangers also detained his close associate on Saturday. The fresh arrest came a day after Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah called Dr Asim’s arrest ‘an attack on Sindh’s autonomy’.

Four officials – three in uniform and one in civvies – picked up Dr Yousuf Sattar, the deputy managing director (MD) of the Ziauddin Hospital, from his office in the hospital’s North Nazimabad campus on Saturday, witnesses said. According to unconfirmed reports, the officials also examined documents and data available with the hospital’s administration and IT department.

Law enforcers dressed in plain clothes also reportedly picked up the maintenance department in-charge of the Clifton chapter of the Ziauddin Hospital late Saturday evening. According to reports, some important documents were also recovered in the raid. However, there was no immediate official confirmation of the raid.

Meanwhile, the Rangers told a Karachi anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday that Dr Asim was ‘fit and healthy’. The response came after Dr Asim’s family informed the court that he suffered from diabetes and hypertension, and requested they be allowed to meet him with a physician.

The paramilitary force assured the ATC that Dr Asim’s condition was normal and that he was being provided the best medical care. “A doctor and two nurses have been looking after him round-the-clock in detention,” stated the report the Rangers submitted in the court. According to the Rangers’ law officer, Dr Asim had also been provided with the medicines he asked for.

The Rangers took Dr Asim, the chairman of the Higher Education Commission in Sindh and a confidante of Zardari, into 90-day preventive custody following a raid on his office on Wednesday on charges of terror financing. The arrest has sparked furor among the PPP leadership, who have accused to government of carrying out ‘political victimisation’ of their party.

SSGC officials detained for 90 days: Rangers

Rangers also informed an ATC on Saturday that they have taken three top officials of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) into 90-day preventive custody.

The paramilitary force’s law officer, while presenting SSGC Deputy MD Shoaib Warsi, Zuhair Siddiqui and Kamran Ahmed in the court, said they had had credible evidence that the three officials had facilitated terrorist activity by misusing authority and embezzling funds. All three of them were arrested in a targeted raid on Wednesday.

A fourth SSGC official, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Amin Rajput, was also reportedly picked up by law enforcers dressed in plain clothes in Karachi late Friday night. No law enforcement or security agency has confirmed the arrest so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2015.