‘Enforced’ disappearance: Lawyers continue boycott of court proceedings

Son goes to court against missing father.

KARACHI:

All proceedings remained suspended at the district and sessions court, Malir, on Monday as the lawyers from Malir Bar Association (MBA) continued their boycott against an alleged disappearance of a bar member.

MBA president Ashraf Samoo stated that Saeedur Rahman Mehsood had gone missing since he left his home in Steel Town for Jinnah hospital on August 14. Samoo further quoted Mehsood’s son, Umer Saeed, as saying  that he was picked up by law enforcement agencies.

Samoo stated that Mehsood had gone to the hospital with one of his clients, Abdul Ali, and an another man to get the body of his client’s relative who was shot dead by someone and since then, the lawyer, two other men and a Cultus car have been missing. The lawyer’s son had registered a case in Steel Town and Saddar police station and has mentioned in the FIRs that his father has been picked up by law enforcement agencies from the hospital. The province-wide strike call was given by the Sindh Bar Council in protest against the disappearance of Mehsood.

On Saturday, the lawyers of the Karachi Bar Association and MBA had staged a sit-in on National Highway suspending the traffic for some time. The MBA had earlier announced that bar members would continue the strike on Monday if Mehsood was not safely brought home.

In an application, the MBA also intimated the district and sessions judge, Malir, about the strike requesting not to pass any adverse order against the practicing lawyers for not appearing before the courts.

SHC petition

A Sindh High Court division bench, headed by Justice Faisal Arab, issued notices to the provincial home secretary and provincial chiefs of police and Rangers for August 26 to file their comments on the whereabouts of the missing lawyer, Saeedur Rehman.

His son, Umer Saeed, had gone to the court, alleging that the personnel of the law enforcement agencies had picked up his father from Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on August 14. He is still in unlawful detention of the law enforcers, which is against the fundamental rights of every citizen as enshrined in the constitution, he claimed.

The petitioner pleaded the court to order the chiefs of police and Rangers to produce the detainee in the court of law.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2013.