Kept in the dark: SHC issues notice to officials to explain detention of brothers

Petitioner’s lawyer, told judges that Osama's name was on list of people detained at a centre in Lakki Marwat.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued a notice on Thursday on a petition questioning the law under which brothers Osama Waheed and Ajmal Waheed have been detained at an internment centre in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa.

The SHC bench, headed by Justice Ghulam Sarwar Korai, directed several prominent officials of law enforcement and intelligent agencies as well as the federal and provincial interior secretaries to file comments by January 10.

The Waheed brothers have been previously accused of having links with the alQaeda, financing and harbouring the Jundullah militants and providing medical assistance to militants following the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan. However, the courts acquitted the brothers.

Afzal Waheed informed the judges that his brother, Osama Waheed, a computer engineer, along with his elder brother, Mohammad Ajmal Waheed, were whisked away by law enforcement agencies from the Karachi airport on July 1, 2011.

Osama was returning from his release from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail after the Anti-Terrorism Court acquitted him of the charges. Syed Abdul Waheed, the petitioner’s lawyer, informed the judges that recently a deputy attorney general had submitted a list of persons, including Osama, currently detained at the centre in Lakki Marwat.

The petitioner asked the court to order authorities to produce Osama in the court on the next date of hearing to record a statement and also questioned the court about the law under which the brothers were being kept in the internment cell.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2013.