Suo Motu Action: After 12 years in jail for a walk, mentally disturbed man released

There was no case against Bilawal who has been incarcerated in Hyderabad jail for 12 years.


Our Correspondent January 22, 2012

KARACHI:


It was a 12-year-long ordeal for mentally challenged Bilal alias Bilawal that came to an end here on Saturday, courtesy Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.


There was no case against Bilawal who has been incarcerated in Hyderabad jail for 12 years and was released on Saturday from the Central Prison of Karachi on the orders of the CJP who took suo motu action.

Bilawal’s brother and sisters, residents of Machhar Colony, had appealed to the CJP that they came to know recently that he was at Hyderabad jail.

The Special police found that he was arrested somewhere in the countryside and was booked on charges of straying in a suspicious manner. The jail record showed that the police and other state functionaries just forgot about him after he was sent to jail on judicial remand. He was never produced before any court, nor was his mental condition ever examined.

Bilawal claimed that he walked up to few a hundred miles when in some small town the police arrested him and sent him to jail.

He did not blame anybody for his long incarceration.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22nd, 2012.

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