Punjab government assures LHC that detained PAT workers will be released
This undertaking was given by additional home secretary Wajahat Hamdani during hearing of five identical petitions challenging detention of the PAT workers in the province.
Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan of LHC declared the detention of the workers illegal and was going to order immediate release of the workers when the additional home secretary requested the judge to not to pass a judicial order to this effect. Instead, he undertook that government would release all detained workers unconditionally and immediately.
During the course of hearing, the secretary defended the detentions, claiming that PAT workers were involved in anti-state activities. However, Justice Khan rejected the argument and observed that the government should have detained the party leader if the workers were involved in illegal activities.
The judge said it was always easy for the police to put poor people behind the bars and nobody would imagine the pain of a detainee's family. He came down hard on the Punjab bureaucracy and regretted that at least ten staff officers accompanied one bureaucrat even before the courts.
Justice Khan disposed of the petitions in light of the undertaking presented by the government and directed the secretary to submit a compliance report.
Earlier, Advocate Ishtiaq Chaudhry, who appeared on behalf of the PAT, had argued that the government was targeting party workers on political grounds. He said the government had detained at least 72 workers of the party who had not been produced before any court of law. He asked the court to set aside the detention of these workers and order the government to release them.
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