Categorising militants: PHC seeks strategy for ‘grey category’ inmates

Court restrains Torghar anti-corruption dept from arresting former minister

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) asked the provincial and federal governments to reveal their strategy to tackle grey category suspects who were being held at internment centres.

The division bench of PHC Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Irshad Qaiser heard a petition filed by the relatives of several grey category inmates, including Niqab Khan, through their various counsels on Tuesday.

Deputy Attorney General Manzoor Khalil and Additional Advocate General Qaiser Ali Shah told the bench the provincial government would decide the future of the internees in a meeting to be held soon. However, the judges observed individuals in the grey category had been in prison for several months and it was unclear which court would hear their cases.

The deputy attorney general told the PHC an apex committee of the provincial government would review these cases and send recommendations to the Ministry of Interior. He said the ministry would subsequently decide on whether to send these cases to military courts or others.

At the end of the hearing, the bench asked both counsels if the government had formed a strategy for such inmates and asked for their assistance when making decisions in such cases.

Restrained

The same bench stopped the Torghar anti-corruption department from arresting former provincial minister Namroz Khan in a corruption case. It also sought a reply from the department in this case.

The bench heard the writ petition filed by former minister Namroz Khan through his counsel Abdul Latif Afridi on Tuesday.

Afridi told the court Namroz was minister for religious affairs and auqaf from 2008 to 2013. He said during his tenure, Namroz distributed cheques ranging from Rs10,000 to Rs20,000 each among 139 seminaries.

The lawyer said the anti-corruption department claimed Gul Feroz had submitted an application against corruption in the distribution process. However, Afridi told the court when asked, Feroz denied all knowledge of any such application.

The counsel told the court the Torghar anti-corruption department, regardless, opened an enquiry against the former minister in August 2014. He said the seminaries received the amounts through cross cheques and none of them complained of not getting their money. Afridi told the court the anti-corruption department was acting on an anonymous application which was legally unsound.

After hearing the arguments, the court stopped the department from arresting Namroz and asked for a reply in the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2015.