Okara farms: SC rejects plea to transfer prisoner from high security jail

Mehar Abdul Sattar has been acquitted in 32 cases out of 36 registered

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has rejected a plea from Anjuman Muzareen Representative Mehr Abdul Sattar’s wife to transfer him from a high security prison to Okara district jail.

Mehar Abdul Sattar is the general secretary of Anjuman Muzareen Punjab and Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, which had demanded land rights at Okara Military Farms. He has been in jail since April 2016 with 36 police cases registered against him. He has already been acquitted in 32 cases.

When the three judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar, resumed the hearing on Wednesday, Abdi Saqi appeared on behalf of Sattar’s wife and argued the case. His plea before the bench was to transfer the detainee from a high security prison to the district jail. However, the bench dismissed the plea on grounds that this is an issue for the concerned authorities to decide.



In March 2017, he was shifted to Sahiwal high security prison, where the lawyer claimed he was tortured. The late Asma Jahangir, on behalf of the applicant’s wife, approached the Lahore High Court, where his petition was dismissed on June 1, 2017. Later, Jahangir filed a petition in the SC to seek her husband’s transfer to an ordinary jail.

On August 23, 2017, Jahangir had questioned how the prisoner was shifted to a high security jail from a normal jail without a mandatory judicial order. She alleged that the farmer was chained up and inhuman treatment was being meted out to him in the high security jail. She reiterated that Sattar was shifted to a high security jail by the Punjab home secretary and later the court was approached to declare that such an administrative order was against prison rules. However, a law officer told the bench that the farmer was shifted to a high security jail for security reasons.

The apex court had directed the jail authorities to remove Sattar’s chains immediately and allow his family and counsel to meet him. The bench had also observed that the court would look into the case record and procedures for shifting an under-trial prisoner to high a security jail.