Confined ‘illegally’: SHC issues notice in plea against the detention of Pasban leader

Usman Moazzam and his son were captured by the Rangers during a raid on July 19

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued notices to the federal interior and defence secretaries, the provincial home secretary and chiefs of the Rangers and police on a petition challenging the alleged unlawful detention of Pasban-e-Pakistan’s general secretary, Usman Moazzam, and his son, Muhammad Siddiqui, by the Rangers.

The division bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Azhar, also issued notices to the attorney-general and the advocate-general to submit the authorities’ replies by August 6.

Moazzam’s wife, Subohi, had gone to court to seek the whereabouts of her husband and her son who are missing since July 19.

Read: Residence raided: Pasban secretary-general Usman Moazzam ‘detained by Rangers’

She named the interior secretary, the defence secretary, the provincial home secretary, the Rangers DG, police IG, the special investigation unit SSP and the Samanabad police SHO as respondents in the plea.

The petitioner alleged that Rangers personnel had raided their house in Federal B Area on July 19 and detained her husband and their son.

When the Rangers authorities were approached to inquire about the detainees, neither did they give any clue about the allegations against them nor did they share any information on their whereabouts, she said.

Muhammad Farooq, the petitioner’s lawyer, argued that the detention of his client’s husband and son was a violation of the basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The official respondents were legally bound to protect the life and liberty of citizens but they had failed to do so, he added.

The lawyer recalled that the petitioner’s other son, Saad Moazzam, is already missing since July 11 and a petition seeking his recovery from illegal detention is pending disposal with the court.

Moazzam had also contested the by-polls on Karachi’s national assembly seat, NA-246, but lost to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Kanwar Javeed Jameel.

Read: Pasban unaware of whereabouts of Usman Moazzam, sons

“The petitioner apprehends that her husband has been taken into custody because he had once given a statement for forming a separate province for the Mohajirs,” mentioned the lawyer.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2015.