Courts deserted as lawyers protest kidnapping of colleague

They said that the law enforcers have not done enough to locate and rescue the kidnapped person.

HYDERABAD:

Enraged by the fact that their Hindu colleague was kidnapped four days ago and has still not been found, lawyers in several districts of Sindh boycotted the courts on Monday and said that they would continue to do so if law enforcers do not rescue him soon.

Advocate Mohan Lal Meghwadh went missing on Friday. His car was found abandoned at a public transport stand on the Mirpurkhas-Hyderabad road. SP Thakur Kanwar Singh said that the police was informed that a car had been parked at the spot since Friday morning. “At night, we found out that the vehicle belongs to a lawyer,” he told The Express Tribune.

To protest against the abduction, the bar associations of Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Umerkot and Tharparker announced that they would boycott their duties for an entire week. Their colleagues in Hyderabad also refused to perform their duties on Monday. “We are not only upset by the fact that Meghwadh has been abducted, but are also angry because the police is refusing to cooperate with us in this matter,” said Advocate Salahuddin Panhwar, who is the president of the Mirpurkhas district bar association as well as a member of the Pakistan Bar Council.

He complained that despite the fact that three days had elapsed, the police had not taken enough steps to find Meghwadh. “No police officer has even contacted us yet,” he lamented.

The law enforcers do not know the exact location from where the lawyer was kidnapped and hence there is confusion as to which police station should register the case. The car itself was found near the Tando Jam police station.

The missing lawyer is a practitioner of civil law and was enrolled in the Sindh High Court for over a year. “Megwadh was new to our profession and enrolled for practice at the districts and session court more than five years ago,” said Advocate Adnan Khurram of the Mirpurkhas bar association. The kidnapped lawyer has worked in the courts of Sanghar, Umerkot and Tharparker as well.

Advocate Haresh Lohano, who works at the same law firm as the kidnapped lawyer, said that Megwadh was not a criminal lawyer and did not think that revenge could be the reason behind the abduction.“To my knowledge, he doesn’t have any enemies. I have known him for more than 12 years,” he claimed. Lohano thinks that the kidnappers might have mistakenly thought that Megwadh is a rich man, as is the case with other people of the Hindu community.

According to Lohano, Megwadh’s family has decided to lodge an FIR in a police station located in Mirpurkhas.

Salahuddin Panhwar, a member of the Pakistan Bar Council, along with other lawyers, met the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, in Karachi. He told the Chief Justice about the kidnapping and sought his help in rescuing Megwadh.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2011.