Petition seeks recovery of ex-CM’s principal secretary

Complainant maintains her husband is being kept in illegal custody

LAHORE:

A plea was filed in Lahore High Court seeking recovery of former chief minister Ch Pervaiz Elahi’s principal secretary Muhammad Khan Bhatti and two others arguing the detenue was being made subject of political victimisation and humiliated for his loyalty to PML-Q.

Petitioner Kausar Parveen, wife of Bhatti, filed petition in LHC seeking direction to concerned quarters to trace, recover and then produce two other detenues Sajid Tanveer and Shahzad Akhtar before the court.

She implored in her petition that detenue (her husband) had been always discharged his duties in the most faithful manner and to the best of his ability, he has unblemished career, however, on account of political background of his family and its political affiliation with PML-Q he had also been made subject of victimisation by the governments headed by rival political parties.

A couple of weeks ago, the petitioner’s husband told her that the political rival on account of their position being in government have decided to implicate him in false criminal cases.

The petitioner maintained that it has been planned to authorise inquiries or register false criminal cases against him in secret and clandestine manner so as to ensure that he may not be able to approach courts.

She came to know on January 19 through media reports that the name of petitioner’s husband was put onto the Exit Control List by the FIA.

Petitioner maintained that her husband was not given the copy of the FIR registered by Anti-Corruption Establishment for which he was about to take legal course, suffice it to submit that he lastly came in contact with her through a call on mobile phone on February 6 and told her that some unidentified person in civvies have intercepted his vehicle and they were going to arrest him.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2023.