Another missing person: Ex-army engineer moves court over missing son
His son was picked up from near district courts in Rawalpindi in January last year.
RAWALPINDI:
A retired army engineer moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) for the recovery of his son from the “illegal detention” of security agencies. He claimed that his son was taken away in January last year.
Justice Ijaz Ahmed of the LHC Rawalpindi bench on Monday directed secretary Ministry of Defence and Rawalpindi police officers to submit their written response by June 7 in the petition filed by Professor Javaid Iqbal.
Citing the defence secretary, Regional Police Office, City Police Officer and Station House Officer Civil Lines police as respondents, Javaid Iqbal who retired from Pakistan Army as an engineer maintained his son Shahid Iqbal went to Islamabad from Lahore in January last year but did not return.
The petitioner said that he, along with his son, owns a company PECS Industries which manufactures electrical parts and assemblies for the automobile assemblers in the country. He said his only son was also an electrical engineer and had graduated from University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, where the petitioner has been serving as a professor for the last many years.
It was in January, 2010, when the 33-year-old Shahid Iqbal left for Islamabad for some personal work at Pakistan Engineering Council. Shahid was to return home in three days but he never came back, his father told the court in his written petition.
For the first two days Shahid’s cell phone remained unattended but later it was switched off. The father of the missing person said he could not find the whereabouts of his son for many days.
It was only after an anonymous caller calling from a private number informed the petitioner that his son was in the custody of security agencies after Shahid was arrested from outside the district courts Rawalpindi.
Through his own efforts, Iqbal came to know that his son was safe and detained somewhere in Rawalpindi.
Explaining the delay of more than a year in filing the petition for recovery of Shahid, Advocate Shaukat Aziz Siddiqi representing the petitioner informed the court that Professor Iqbal had tried to learn the whereabouts of his son and convince the authorities about his innocence.
The petitioner has prayed to the court to direct the authorities to produce Shahid before the high court as he had no criminal record and had never been involved in any anti-state activity. The retired army officer further said if his detained son was involved in any criminal case, he should be produced before the court of law as he could not bear this unsolicited agony.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 31st, 2011.
A retired army engineer moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) for the recovery of his son from the “illegal detention” of security agencies. He claimed that his son was taken away in January last year.
Justice Ijaz Ahmed of the LHC Rawalpindi bench on Monday directed secretary Ministry of Defence and Rawalpindi police officers to submit their written response by June 7 in the petition filed by Professor Javaid Iqbal.
Citing the defence secretary, Regional Police Office, City Police Officer and Station House Officer Civil Lines police as respondents, Javaid Iqbal who retired from Pakistan Army as an engineer maintained his son Shahid Iqbal went to Islamabad from Lahore in January last year but did not return.
The petitioner said that he, along with his son, owns a company PECS Industries which manufactures electrical parts and assemblies for the automobile assemblers in the country. He said his only son was also an electrical engineer and had graduated from University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, where the petitioner has been serving as a professor for the last many years.
It was in January, 2010, when the 33-year-old Shahid Iqbal left for Islamabad for some personal work at Pakistan Engineering Council. Shahid was to return home in three days but he never came back, his father told the court in his written petition.
For the first two days Shahid’s cell phone remained unattended but later it was switched off. The father of the missing person said he could not find the whereabouts of his son for many days.
It was only after an anonymous caller calling from a private number informed the petitioner that his son was in the custody of security agencies after Shahid was arrested from outside the district courts Rawalpindi.
Through his own efforts, Iqbal came to know that his son was safe and detained somewhere in Rawalpindi.
Explaining the delay of more than a year in filing the petition for recovery of Shahid, Advocate Shaukat Aziz Siddiqi representing the petitioner informed the court that Professor Iqbal had tried to learn the whereabouts of his son and convince the authorities about his innocence.
The petitioner has prayed to the court to direct the authorities to produce Shahid before the high court as he had no criminal record and had never been involved in any anti-state activity. The retired army officer further said if his detained son was involved in any criminal case, he should be produced before the court of law as he could not bear this unsolicited agony.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 31st, 2011.