Illegal detention: SHC demands reports from police and Rangers chiefs, home secy

Relatives of missing MQM activists approach the court

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has called reports from the Sindh home secretary and the provincial chiefs of the Rangers and the police regarding the whereabouts of several missing activists belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

A division bench, comprising justices Naimatullah Phulpoto and Shaukat Ali Memon, directed the deputy attorney-general and the provincial advocate and prosecutor-general to submit their replies by June 6. The bench was hearing petitions filed by the relatives of the MQM workers who had approached the court to seek their recovery.

Petitioner Muhammad Sabir told the two judges that Rangers personnel had taken away his brother, Muhammad Shahid, from near Samdani Hospital in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 5 on May 11. He added that Shahid's whereabouts were still unknown to the family since the law enforcement officials had refused to disclose any information about him despite requests.

Meanwhile, Azizabad resident Zohra Hashim stated that her husband, Muhammad Hashim, had left their house for his shop at Ayesha Manzil on May 6 but he never returned. She also complained that the law enforcement agencies were not revealing his whereabouts despite the family's requests. She pleaded to the court to order the law enforcers to locate her missing husband.

Another petitioner, Muhammad Bilal Zia, submitted that his brother, Muhammad Adil Zia, a Port Qasim Authority employee, was detained by Rangers personnel on May 11. He told the judges that neither did the Rangers officials disclose Adil's location nor did they produce him in any court of law, in violation of the Constitution.

Another port employee, Muhammad Furqan Khan, was picked up from his residence near Nagan Chowrangi, according to his mother, Sagheer-un-Nisa. Claiming that her son, who worked for the Karachi Port Trust, was being detained illegally by the law enforcement agencies, she requested the judges to order the officials to produce him in court.

Separately, petitioner Nazia Naz claimed that her husband, Kashif, was picked up in Korangi on May 6 and was still missing.

In another petition, Rasheeda and Muhammad Shareef said that Ziauddin, Muhammad Arid, Abdul Khaliq and Khursheed were taken into custody by Rangers personnel on April 29. The detainees, who are residents of Shaikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi Colony in Dhabeji, are still missing and the law enforcers have given no information about their location, the petitioners added.

Meanwhile, Amrit Khan told the bench that his father, Khalilur Rehman, and his brother, Qalat Khan, were picked up by the Rangers on April 23. He said that he approached the law enforcers to seek information about the two men, who are both private water suppliers, but they refused. He requested the court to order the police and the Rangers to produce them in court along with details of the cases, if any, against them.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2015.