Missing person case: Defence secretary put on notice

Jamshed Raza was allegedly whisked away from Bahawapur Jail last year.

RAWALPINDI:

A court on Thursday issued notice to the defence secretary on a petition seeking recovery of a missing man.

Justice Shahid Hamid Dar of the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Rawalpindi bench directed the defence secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Asif Yasin Malik to submit his reply to the petition filed by Shamraiz Khan through his counsel, Abdul Aziz Chandio, for his brother’s recovery and adjourned the hearing for two weeks.

The petitioner has cited secretaries of defence, interior, law and justice, spy agencies chiefs and Punjab’s home department as respondents.

The petitioner claimed that his brother was being kept in a detention centre of the army in tribal area.

Jamshed Raza, 55, hailing from Gujrat, was arrested by the Rawalpindi police in 2010 for his alleged involvement in the twin suicide attacks on the convoy of the then President Musharraf near Civil Lines on December 25, 2003.

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on June 15, 2011 granted him bail for want of evidence. However, Raza was not released from Adiala Jail after Islamabad deputy commissioner issued orders for detaining Raza for one month.

However, the accused was taken into custody by Sama Satta police of Bahawalpur on July 16, last year for his alleged hand in a robbery case.

A magistrate, however, cleared Raza from the charges and ordered his release on September 15, 2011 but he was not released and allegedly taken away from the jail by personnel of intelligence agencies.

His family moved the LHC’s Bahawalpur bench on October 25, 2011 but the jail authorities said the man had been released from the prison.

Later the family approached a commission working on missing persons which constituted a joint investigation team (JIT) for recovery of Raza.

A colonel informed the investigators on July 18 this year that Raza was being kept in an army internment centre and promised to arrange a meeting of the detained man with his family.

The petitioner, however, said that despite a lapse of four months, his brother has not yet been allowed to meet this family.

He prayed to the court to direct the authorities to arrange a meeting and ask them to explain under what law Raza was shifted from Bahawalpur to Fata.

Pindi MNA granted pre-arrest bail

Meanwhile, another LHC bench granted bail to an opposition member of National Assembly in the case of misuse of a controlled chemical.

Justice Sagheer Ahmed Qadri and Justice Ali Baqir Najafi of the LHC Rawalpindi bench granted pre-arrest bail to MNA Hanif Abbasi in the case of misuse of ephedrine quota.

The court directed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz legislator from Rawalpindi to furnish two surety bonds each for Rs500,000 and confirmed his interim pre-arrest bail.

The investigation officer (IO) admitted that he had not yet completed the investigation of the case that was registered in July this year. He, however, claimed that Abbasi had provided fake documents trying to show his pharmaceutical company consumed ephedrine in the manufacturing of medicines.

Abbasi’s company claimed to have sold ephedrine-containing medicines to 17 distributors in Karachi. Of those, 13 denied having any transaction with Gray’s, while the addresses of other four were found to be incorrect, said the officer.

He claimed that a partner of the MNA had informed the ANF that their company never received any ephedrine.

Earlier the MNA’s lawyer, Sardar Muhammad Ishaq, termed the criminal case against his client as baseless.

Bailable warrants issued for MPA

In a separate case, a lower court issued bailable arrest warrant for a PML-N member of the Punjab Assembly from Gujar Khan for not appearing before the court.

Earlier, Rawalpindi Deputy Election Commissioner (DEC) Zahoor Ahmed Pasha had filed a criminal complaint against MPA Shaukat Aziz Bhatti for submitting a fake graduation degree with his nomination papers for 2008 elections.

On October 22, the court had issued notice to Bhatti to appear before the court on November 1.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2012.