SHC wants affidavit Baloch not detained

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court directed the Federal Interior Secretary Friday to file a personal affidavit by May 31 to the effect that the missing Baloch leader, Abdul Ghaffar Langho, is not in the custody of the law-enforcement or intelligence agencies.

A division bench, comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Syed Zakir Hussain, further directed him to appear personally, if he failed to submit it before or at the next hearing. Petitioner Niaz Muhammed Langho had moved the court seeking the whereabouts of his brother Abdul Ghaffar Langho, leader of the Balochistan National Party. He cited the Interior Secretary, DG ISI, Military Intelligence, Sindh Home Secretary, IG Sindh, and SHO PS Garden, Karachi as respondents. He submitted that Ghaffar was picked by intelligence agency personnel near the Institute of Surgery & Medical Sciences, Karachi, where he had gone to see his wife on Dec 12, 2009. A vendor told his wife, Zarina, that he was taken away.

His family approached the Garden police to lodge a complaint, but they refused. Previously, a federal law officer had filed a statement on behalf of the Interior Secretary, stating that the detenue was neither arrested nor detained by the FIA, Islamabad Police or Pakistan Rangers (Sindh). On Friday, the SHC division bench ordered: “The Secretary Interior is required to file his affidavit after seeking information from different agencies that the detenue was not in their custody.

He has to spell out in the affidavit that he has submitted the affidavit on the basis of information he collected from different agencies. The affidavit shall be filed within 15 days from today, failing which the Secretary Interior shall appear in court. Adjourned to May 31.”

Published in the Express Tribune, May 15th, 2010.