'Missing' journalist awarded bail in two cases

Kamran Sahito was picked up by law enforcers from his house on February 6

HYDERABAD:

A journalist who was allegedly subjected to enforced disappeared after his arrest from his residence on February 6 was finally freed on Friday, after over a month-long detention.

Kamran Sahito, who works as a sub-editor at a Sindhi daily, was awarded bail in two separate FIRs of police encounters and possessing an illegal weapon lodged in Hyderabad and Jamshoro districts by the respective courts.

The police kept denying Sahito's detention for almost four weeks until the court compelled the officials to declare his arrest. The Jamshoro police produced the journalist before a local court, which sent him to the Nara jail on judicial remand before his bail could be approved.

Separately, the Hyderabad police declared the arrest on Thursday of an activist from Johi taluka of Dadu district who went missing in August, 2017. The Naseem Nagar police claimed that they arrested activist Ghulam Abbass Loond from near the Hyderabad Bypass, adding that a hand grenade was recovered from his possession. Loond was subsequently booked in an FIR containing sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act and Explosive Act while the anti-terrorism court granted his 14-day physical remand to the police.