Ensuring due process: Missing sons’ mother challenges military courts

The petitioner’s sons, along with eight others, were handed over to intelligence agencies.

ISLAMABAD:

While politicians wrangle over efficacy of military courts in the country, the scope of these courts’ jurisdiction in trying civilians, under the Pakistan Army Act, has been challenged before the Supreme Court.

The court has been moved by a woman who stated that the Rawalpindi jail superintendent handed over her sons – Syed Abdusaboor, Syed Abdul Basit and Syed Abdul Majid – to the intelligence agencies, along with eight others.

The petitioner’s counsel, Tariq Asad, invoking article 184(3) of the Constitution, said that three of the detained men died because of torture and slow poisoning.

“The matter is of public importance and there is apprehension of deaths of the remaining eight surviving detainees,” he said.

The counsel asked the court for production of all detained men and submission of a comprehensive report on the circumstances surrounding those who died in custody.

The family of one of the detainees, Muhammad Amir, was asked on August 15, 2011, to take possession of his body from the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, the petitioner stated. Reportedly, he died of torture.

Two other detainees, Tehseenulla and Said Arab, were shifted in a critical condition to the Lady Reading Hospital on December 17, 2011. Tehseenullah died the same day while Arab breathed his last the next day.

The petitioner argued whether depriving citizens of a fair trial and an impartial tribunal is not violation of Article 9 of the Constitution and whether the lives of citizens can be taken without due process of law.

From one case to another

The petitioner’s sons published scripture and religious literature in Urdu Bazaar, Lahore, and went missing in November 2007 after they were taken to a police station.

When Rohaifa moved the Lahore High Court for the release of her sons, she learnt they had been booked under Anti Terrorism Act. They were acquitted by the Anti-Terrorist Court, Rawalpindi, in all the cases, on April 8, 2010.

But before they could be released, the home department secretary, on May 6, extended their detention for another 90 days under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance.

The detention orders were set aside by the Lahore High Court, Rawapindi Bench on May 28, but the Rawalpindi jail superintendent, instead of releasing the detainees, handed them over on May 29, along with 8 others, to intelligence agencies.

When the matter came up for hearing in the Supreme Court under the missing persons case on December 9, directors general of Inter-Services and Military Intelligence conceded that the detainees were in their custody.

The advocate-general also submitted a reply on June 2, 2011, that the detainees were formally arrested in the first week of April 2011 and a case had been registered under the Pakistan Army act, 1952.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2012.