PHOTO: IHC WEBSITE
The petition has been filed by Zainab Khan, the wife of Abdullah Omar, for the recovery of her husband, has gone missing since June 20 this year.
Justice Shoukat Siddiqui recused himself saying that he had once represented the Omar’s father in a case and it was therefore a conflict of interest for him to conduct the proceedings. The judge sent the case back to the IHC chief justice for referring it to another bench.
Omar and three others have been booked for the murders of federal minorities’ minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) special prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali.
The petitioner stated that Omar along with Hammad Dadan, Ammar Dadan and Ahmad Bashir were picked up on June 20 allegedly by officials of an intelligence agency from outside a mosque near the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.
Bashir, who was left behind, revealed that Omar, Hammad and Ammar were taken away by armed men of an intelligence agency, the petitioner claimed.
Hammad’s father had approached the IHC seeking recovery of his son. However, while the petition was pending in the court, Hammad and Ammar were released on August 5.
“After this, there is no doubt in any manner whatsoever that my husband is in illegal custody of the respondents,” the petition maintained.
Omar was paralysed from leg down after he was shot and injured on May 3, 2013 during the alleged target killing of the FIA prosecutor. It was reported that Omar was shot and injured by the prosecutor’s gunman and was later arrested from a hospital. He was released on bail in July last year on medical grounds. Omar is pursuing LLB Honors in Sharia and law from the Islamic International University Islamabad.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 9th, 2015.
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