The furore over the extended detention of Afaq Ahmed of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi continued on Thursday with a petition challenging it in court, a party press conference threatening passive reaction and a police explanation of why it happened.
On Monday, Afaq, who has been in jail since 2004, was granted bail in the last remaining case against him, for the 2009 murder of a rival Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) worker. He was supposed to be released on Wednesday but then came the orders that he was being detained for another month as there were fears violence would break out upon his release.
“If Afaq Ahmed is not released by Monday, we will direct our party activists who are living [away from their neighbourhoods] to go to their homes in groups of five to 10 people,” said MQM-H vice chairman Shamshad Ahmed Khan Ghauri in a press conference on Thursday. “And if anything happens to any one of them then the government will be responsible.”
He chose to blame the additional chief secretary for the home department, Waseem Ahmed, for the authorities’ decision to detain Afaq another month under the Maintenance of Public Order rules.
The Sindh police attempted to deflect the allegations, with Inspector General Wajid Ali Durrani saying that they recommended delaying Afaq’s release.
It is no secret that the MQM-H and MQM have been rivals for years. Afaq broke away from the Altaf Hussain-led MQM to form his own faction. “Both these groups have a history of friction and the probability of another round of rivalry could not be ruled out,” the IG told the media outside the Supreme Court. “In view of this we requested the home department to issue a detention order which is for a period of one month and is not indefinite.”
The IG said they had reports from the Special Branch, intelligence and police that in if Afaq is released, there was a strong chance that law and order would be disrupted.
Earlier in the day, the Sindh High Court’s Chief Justice Musheer Alam and Justice Imam Bux Baloch heard Syed Iqbal Kazmi, a representative of a little known NGO Human Rights Commission of South Asia (not to be confused with the HRCP). He asked the court to declare the detention in violation of Article 10 of the constitution and therefore illegal.
He asked the court to declare that under Articles 15, 17 and 19, the incarcerated leader was free to live as he wished. Annexing a number of newspaper clippings, the petitioner maintained that the governor played a key role in deferring the release despite court orders. He referred to a meeting between the governor and home minister a night before the detention orders were issued.
The bench ordered for pre-admission notices to be issued for a date to be set immediately after seven days. The notices were for the Sindh home secretary, superintendent of the Malir prison, commonly called Landhi jail, and the advocate general.
(with additional reporting by sohail khattak)
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2011.
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We should let this thug go. He is of no significance other than be used by ZM and his and for killing in the city