Sindh High Court : PHOTO: EXPRESS
"I was apprehended with my husband and 10 children two years ago," stated the wife of Omar Siddiqi, who is missing, before the court. "We were blindfolded. My children and I were released but my husband has been missing since then," she claimed, asking that her husband should be presented before the relevant court if he had committed any crime.
The two-member bench, comprising Justice KK Agha and Justice Zulfiqar Ali Sangi, expressed annoyance with the provincial government, police and other agencies for failing to make any progress in the case. No agency is following the recommendations given by other agencies. The performance of the provincial task force is almost nil. Who else will make efforts for the recovery of missing people if the relevant agencies don't, observed the bench.
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The court asked the additional attorney-general what had been done to gather information from jails and prisons in other provinces, as per orders, upon which he replied that the decision had been made to discuss the matter with prison officials and other relevant officials on the phone.
Remarking that this was not sufficient, the court directed him to write letters and gather solid information.
The court sought a report regarding the recovery of Siddiqi, Armeed Shahadat, Khalid Makashi and others from the federal and provincial governments as well as other agencies by January 29.
Sentence commuted
The same bench also rejected the appeal filed by criminals against the sentence awarded to them in a weapons and ammunition case. However, it also commuted their sentence.
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The court announced the verdict on the plea filed by Muhammad Azeem and Shehzad Kamran. The court commuted 14 years of imprisonment awarded to the two men into five years of imprisonment for each of them.
An anti-terrorism court had found them guilty and awarded 14 years of imprisonment to each of them.
According to the police, hand grenades and other illegal weapons were recovered from the possession of Azeem and Kamran in 2017.
Assets beyond means
A two-member bench, comprising SHC Chief Justice Ahmed Ali Shaikh and Justice Omar Sial, confirmed the interim bail of Pehlaj Mal and others accused in a case pertaining to assets beyond means.
The bench heard the bail pleas of Pehlaj Mal, his wife Sangeeta Mal and Abdul Khaliq.
According to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), no evidence against the accused had yet been found during inquiries. Stating that a report for closing the inquiry against the accused had been sent to their head office, NAB officials requested the court to adjourn the hearing till they received a reply.
Accepting the request, the court adjourned the hearing for an indefinite period.
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Plea for removal from ECL
In another case, the bench headed by CJ Shaikh ordered the federal and provincial governments to submit a reply over a plea seeking the removal of Rehan Hashim's name from the Exit Control List (ECL). Hashim has been proven innocent by the police in the murder case of a Chinese citizen.
According to the police, Hashim had been arrested in Hyderabad for allegedly killing a Chinese citizen who was an employee of a shipping company.
Khuwaja Naveed, the petitioner's counsel, claimed that the Counter-Terrorism Department police had declared Hashim innocent in the case, maintaining that his name should, therefore, be removed from the ECL. Hashim, along with his co-accused Saqib Ahmed and Amir, had been made C-class in the case while the court had ordered their release.
Since the Centre and Sindh government failed to submit a reply, the court ordered them to do so by January 17.
Bail plea in murder case
A bench, comprising Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry, directed counsels to continue arguments over the bail plea of a man accused of his wife's murder in Thatta in the next hearing.
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The bench was hearing a bail plea filed by the children of the accused, seeking the release of their father.
"Our maternal uncle, Niaz, killed our mother and then had our father arrested and sent to jail in a fake case," the petitioners maintained before the court. "We witnessed our mother being killed by our uncle. He robbed us of our mother and now he wants us to lose our father too."
The petitioners' counsel claimed that the deceased woman, Zubaida, was murdered by her brother due to personal enmity. He said that her husband had been wrongfully trapped.
Zubaida was murdered on July 21, 2015. Her husband had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court for killing her. A plea against the sentence is under trial in the court.
The bench directed the counsels to continue their arguments pertaining to the bail plea during the next hearing.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2019.
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