Plumbers or Taliban: Two different courts to decide fate of ‘missing’ men

Court orders police to register case against Rangers as magistrate remands suspects to police.

KARACHI: A day before the Rangers representative was supposed to prove to the court that they were not illegally detaining two men, the CID declared them arrested.

This bizarre tale of ‘cooperation’ surfaced on Tuesday when the police produced two suspects, Noorullah Sayed and Khalid Mehmood, in the court of a judicial magistrate while the Sindh High Court (SHC) heard a “missing persons” petition related to the same men.

Noor Sayed, the father of Noorullah, went to the SHC accused a Rangers official, Colonel Pervez, of taking away his son and nephew, Khalid, who are both plumbers, for some work at his office on December 1. When they did not return till late night, Sayed visited the Rangers office, where the officials refused to disclose their whereabouts, the petitioner stated.

On December 3, some officers called up the family. “They demanded Rs500,000 to release the men or they would implicated them in criminal cases,” the applicant told the judges.

Worried about their disappearance, Sayed finally took the Sindh home secretary, inspector general of police, Rangers director-general, Colonel Pervez posted at Super Highway and the Gulshan-e-Maymar SHO to court. He claimed the Gulshan-e-Maymar police also refused to register a kidnapping case against Rangers.

Arguing that no law enforcement agency can detain innocent citizens under the constitution, Sayed appealed to the court to direct the Rangers officials to free the detainees and order the police to register a kidnapping case against the paramilitary force.



During the last hearing on December 7, the judges directed Colonel Pervez to file his personal affidavit that both men were not arrested.

On December 10, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) led by Chaudhry Aslam declared the same men arrested. The CID police claimed they were involved in various terrorist activities in the tribal areas and were in Karachi to strengthen the militant network. The suspects were booked in four cases related to explosives and unlicensed weapons.

The CID presented Noorullah and Khalid in front of a judicial magistrate on Tuesday, when they were remanded, after they ‘confessed’ their association with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. They even admitted they worked for the feared Haqqani Network in Afghanistan.

The alleged militants told the district west judicial magistrate, Muhammad Afzal Roshan, that they had been hiding in Manghopir and were planning multiple attacks when they were arrested. Khalid even told the magistrate that one of his legs was blown away while he was on a “mission” in Afghanistan.

The police asked the court to remand the suspected terrorists for 10 days but the magistrate allowed the police custody until December 16 only.

Meanwhile, at the SHC, a division bench, headed by Chief Justice Mushir Alam, resumed the hearing on Tuesday. After going through the arguments put up, the judges directed the Gulshan-e-Maymar police to register a case of illegal detention against the Rangers officials. They were also asked to file the progress report before the next date of hearing.

While the Gulshan-e-Maymar police waited for Noor Sayed to turn up to register the case against Rangers, SSP Chaudhry Aslam was unaware of the case at the high court. “How can a magistrate give their remand if a petition about their missing is already filed,” he asked while talking to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2012.