Illegal custody?: Petition seeks recovery of men arrested on May 29

Claims detention violates Articles 9 and 10 of the Constitution.

PESHAWAR:

A habeas corpus petition has been filed at the Peshawar High Court requesting the court to order the recovery of eight persons allegedly kept in illegal custody by the Nowshera police.

Muhammad Ikram and Noorul Haq, residents of Landikotal, Khyber Agency, filed the petition through their counsel Mian Muhibullah Kakakhel.

According to the petition, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, the petitioners were transporting supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan from Karachi. Ikram, Haq and six others were shifting a sealed container from a damaged vehicle to another vehicle on May 29 when the police conducted a raid, and seized the container and the two vehicles.

The petition stated the respondents, Nowshera DPO Waqar Khan and Pabbi SHO Muhammad Ijaz, took the two petitioners and six others into custody and their whereabouts could not be ascertained since.

“The detainees are not being treated in accordance with the law and are held in illegal custody,” the petition read.



The habeas corpus petition made clear such detention was in complete violation of Articles 9 and 10 of the Constitution. It also stated the respondents be directed to produce the detainees before the court.

On May 29, Ikram confessed the arrested men were trying to steal generators from the container during an interrogation. He also admitted to stealing goods from other containers previously. The driver of the vehicle managed to escape during the raid. At the time, DPO Khan had stated the raid was conducted on a secret warehouse located near Malang CNG station on Nowshera-Peshawar GT Road based on an intelligence tip-off.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2013.