Contempt of court: Afaq goes after top cops for ‘swearing’ there was no new case against him

Police affidavits have now been proven untrue, says application.

KARACHI:

The chief of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM-Haqiqi) has asked a court to hold two top police officers in contempt for booking him in a new case even though they swore there were none.

Afaq’s lawyer Sohail Hameed filed the contempt application under the Contempt of Court Ordinance, 2004. It names legal consultant Anwar Subhani, Additional Inspector General of Police Saud Mirza and DIG Naeem Borka.

Afaq has argued that these officers wanted to obstruct justice and make a mockery of the law by deliberately making a false statement and undertaking in court.

As proof, he submitted a report and affidavits by the police in which they gave details of cases against Afaq but did not mention a 2001 alleged case of kidnapping. Afaq was just about to get out on bail about a week ago, when he was incriminated in this new item and rearrested.

Now he argues that the police deliberately suppressed this information even though they had full knowledge of this case. Thus, the affidavits they filed turned out to be false and incorrect. The main aim was to keep the information suppressed and to use the case to keep Afaq Ahmed in prison.

The hearing of this contempt of court application was heard by the Sindh High Court’s Chief Justice Musheer Alam and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi on Thursday.

As soon as the MQM-H lawyer opened his arguments, an additional prosecutor general stood up and started making counter arguments. The bench asked then whether he was defending the officers mentioned in the contempt application. When the prosecutor said he was, the judges then asked him whether he was waiving notice which he agreed to.

The court adjourned the proceedings for an unspecified date.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2011.