SHC bars NAB from raiding minister’s homes

The Sindh High Court restrained on Monday the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from conducting raids at the residents of Sindh Irrigation Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal and his relatives.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice KK Agha and Justice Zulfiqar Ali Sangi, was hearing the plea filed by Sohail and others.

The minister's counsel said that NAB had raided the houses of his client's ailing father, late uncle and other relatives without a search warrant and harassed women there.

"NAB has no authority to raid anyone's house without a warrant or harass women unnecessarily," remark Justice Agha, noting that NAB teams should take female police personnel with them during raids. "They must consider society and its values."

The NAB prosecutor told the court they had completed the inquiry against Sohail and others, but were yet to estimate their property prices.

The court extended the bail granted to Sohail, Zafar Siyal and Jamil Soomro until November 12, seeking a progress report from NAB at the next hearing.

Talking to the media after the hearing, Sohail said the NAB inquiry against him had been ongoing for two years, but no evidence had been presented against him. He added that the anti-graft watchdog had not told the court what documents it had seized during the raids. "The land and houses NAB is talking about is our family property," he maintained.

Safoora bus attack case

Another bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Justice Shamsuddin Abbasi, directed the assistant attorney general to provide documents in light of convicts' appeals against the death sentences handed to them by a military court for perpetrating the Safoora Goth bus attack.

A military court had sentenced Saad Aziz, Tahir Minhas, Azhar Ishrat, Hafiz Nasir and Asadur Rehman to death for involvement in the attack that left at least 46 members of the Ismaili Shia community dead in 2015.

The court also directed the appellants to file an official request with the assistant attorney general, seeking the documents from the military court.

As per the convicts' petition, they had not yet been provided copies of the military court's verdict, while their families were not being informed about the case details. The petition further maintained that the families should be called and the execution halted, requesting the SHC to provide them an opportunity to file an appeal in the light of the Supreme Court's (SC) decisions.

Amjad Sabri murder

The same bench also directed the counsel of Asim Capri, who was convicted for the murder of renowned qawwal Amjad Sabri, to file a formal application for obtaining documents from the military court that sentenced him.

Justice Kalhoro requested the additional attorney general to obtain the documents.

The petitioner's counsel stated that it had been learned through the newspapers that Capri had been convicted by a military court, adding that an appeal against the sentence was pending in the apex court with the request to ascertain the courts' jurisdiction.

Justice Kalhoro inquired when the case would be heard in the SC, to which the defence counsel said the next hearing date was not known but the documents were not being provided.

The court adjourned the hearing until November 19.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2020.