Illegal detention of prisoners: Court seeks response from Adiala jail chief

Petitioner claims he is being kept in the jail months after his acquittal.

RAWALPINDI:

The Lahore High Court (LHC) Thursday directed superintendent of Central Jail Adiala to submit a report for not releasing a man after his acquittal.

Justice Imtiaz Ahmed of the LHC Rawalpindi bench directed the chief of the jail to submit his report on the “illegal detention” of Muhammad Rizwan within a week. Rizwan, along with eight other men, was arrested in the case of the murder of a military surgeon, General Mushtaq Baig, who was killed in a suicide attack on February 25, 2008.

The petitioner through his lawyer Basharatullah Khan had maintained that the federal government had issued the detention orders of nine men in April, “after they were acquitted by the high court in the case of carrying explosives and illegal arms”.

All the other men also moved the high court against the detention orders issued on April 4, 2011 and were subsequently released, but the petitioner being “a poor man” could not approach the court against his imprisonment, the petitioner’s counsel said. He said that his client was not released even after his detention orders lapsed on July 4.

Terming this detention as illegal, the petitioner asked the court to direct the jail authorities for his release, as no criminal case was pending against him.

Illyas alias Qari Jamil a resident of Chakwal, Muhammad Rizwan alias Shamasul Haq a resident of Karachi, Dr Abdul Razzaq a resident of Lahore, Faisal Ahmed Khan a resident of Bhakkar, Zeeshan Jalil alias Khizar a resident of Karachi, Muhammad Sarfaraz alias Muhammad Khan a resident of Karachi, Muhammad Naeem Shakir alias Zubair a resident of Sheikhupura, Muhammad Nadeem alias Babu Salahuddin a resident of Rawalpindi and Osama bin Waheed alias Hadayatullah a resident of Bhakkar were given 10 years jail-term on November 16 last year by the court of a magistrate after they were arrested by Saddar Bairuni police with explosive material and arms.



Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2011.