Jinnah Hospital attack: LHC seeks ISI’s comments over doctor’s abduction

LHC hears case of abduction of doctor from Jinnah Hospital, Lahore.

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has sought comments from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in a petition against the alleged abduction of a doctor of Jinnah Hospital, Lahore.

A news item published in The Express Tribune in July 2010 linked the ISI to the abduction of Dr Ali Abdullah.

Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain was hearing a petition which was filed the abducted doctor’s father Dr Sarfaraz. Justice Hussain directed Deputy Attorney-General (DAG) Naveed Inayat Malik to submit the comments on behalf of the ISI director-general by the second week of January. The judge also directed the heads of two investigating teams of the police to appear on the next date of hearing and apprise about the progress in the case.

During the hearing, the counsel for the petitioner submitted before the court to ask The Express Tribune reporter Abdul Manan about his source of information for the news item published in that paper.

Manan’s counsel Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique responded that according to international laws and conventions, no journalist could be asked by any authority about his source of information.

At this, the judge held that Manan had fulfilled his professional duties by filing the story about the doctor’s abduction. He said that because of the story, they knew about the doctor’s abduction and if the story was incorrect, the alleged abductor, ISI, should have contradicted the story. The judge said that Manan should appear before the court on the next hearing.

The petitioner alleged that his son worked in Jinnah Hospital and was missing for the last five months. He alleged that secret agencies’ personnel had abducted Dr Ali Abdullah when he was on his way home from the hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2010.