Enforced disappearance: Court directs police to recover missing man

Abdullah Omar was allegedly abducted by armed ‘agency’ men on June 20.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court directed the police on Thursday to recover a man — a key suspect in two high-profile murder cases — who has been missing since June 20.

Zainab Khan, the wife of Abdullah Omar who was booked for the murder of Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Federal Investigation Agency Special Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, had filed the petition seeking recovery of her husband.

Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi directed Industrial Area SHO to recover Omar at the earliest.

Khan through her counsel Khawar Bukhari has made the SHO, Islamabad’s IGP, secretary interior and the ISI DG respondents.

In the petition, Bukhari stated that Omar along with three others, Hammad Dadan advocate, Ammar Dadan and Ahmad Bashir, went to Masjid Imam Abu Daud near Pims for Taraweeh prayers on June 20 and were allegedly taken away by men of an ‘agency.’

Bashir, who was left behind, residents of the area and a number of policemen present at the spot from where they were taken informed that Omar, Hammad and Ammar were taken away by armed men, Bukhari added.

Hammad and Ammar, alleged to have been in illegal detention of a spy agency, returned home on August 5.

Omar was paralysed from leg down after he was shot and injured on May 3, 2013. Chaudhry Zulfiqar, the prosecutor in the Benazir Bhutto murder case and the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was shot dead on May 3, 2013, as well.

It was reported that Omar was shot and injured by the gunman of the prosecutor and was later arrested from a hospital. He was out on bail at the time of his disappearance.

After the hearing, the case was adjourned for 20 days.

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