MQM workers' case: Two panels formed to probe extra-legal killings, SHC told

Before the bodies were found, the court had been told that law enforcers had detained the victims.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) was informed on Tuesday that two separate committees have been constituted to investigate the alleged extrajudicial killings of the four missing persons, whom the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had claimed to be their activists.

Headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, the bench put off the hearing until the investigation was completed and a report on the findings was prepared.

Last week, the bodies of four men were found from Memon Goth. The victims were identified as Faizanuddin, Ali Haider, Sameed Anees and Salman Qureshi, all aged between 22 to 24 years. Days before their bodies were found, four identical petitions were filed with the SHC wherein the allegations of their unlawful detention were made against the law enforcers.

The provincial home secretary, Sindh IG, Rangers DG, Karachi AIG and the station house officers of the relevant police stations were named as respondents in the petitions. The petitions were filed separately by Mushtaq Ahmed Qureshi, Saeed Ahmed Khan, Sumera Yousuf and Muhammad Osama.

They had submitted that the police and Rangers had taken away their relatives, Salman Qureshi, Sameed Anees, Ali Haider and Faizanuddin, from the Country Apartments located at Gulzar-e-Hijri on April 13.

They had alleged that their relatives were kept in unlawful custody by the law enforcers, who were not disclosing their whereabouts.

According to the petitioners, such unlawful detention was a violation of the fundamental rights, guaranteed by the Constitution.

The petitioners had pleaded the court order the respondent law enforcement agencies to produce the detainees and order action against them for the illegal detention.

When the four petitions were taken up for hearing on Tuesday, the bench was informed that the bodies of the detainees had been found recently.

The judges were also informed that the provincial chief minister and the Rangers director-general had constituted two separate committees to investigate the allegations of extrajudicial killings.

The bench adjourned further hearing on the petitions so that the investigation committees could investigate the allegations and prepare their findings.

Statements recorded

Another bench, headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, was informed that the police have recorded statements of the widow of MQM worker, Noman Talib Ali, along with her witnesses as part of an investigation into his murder, allegedly by the law enforcers.

Samreen Jehan had approached the SHC to seek judicial inquiry into the murder of her husband, who was an employee of the Orangi Town union council.

MQM plea

Meanwhile, the hearing on a separate petition, filed by the MQM against the alleged killings of its workers by law enforcers in Karachi, was put off due to the absence of the party's lawyer, Farogh Naseem. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2014.