HRCP chairman released after brief detention

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Chairman Asad Iqbal Butt was released after he was detained briefly for questioning by police on Thursday.

An HRCP member, Abdul Hai, said that Butt was taken to the Gulberg Police Station for questioning but he was later allowed to return home. Contrary to earlier reports, police authorities said that Asad Iqbal Butt was not arrested and that he was only briefly detained for an interrogation.

After his release, Butt reportedly said that police detained him for three to four hours without any solid reason. “The police entered our house and asked me to come to police station,” he said. He said that female police officials were also accompanied when area police arrived at his house.

He said that the main question at the police station was about his visit to Quetta. “I haven’t visited Quetta in the last seven years,” he said, adding that the police wanted to know about the HRCP’s support for Baloch activists.

“They released me after the pressure mounted on the media,” he said. “It’s illegal and against the human rights,” he said and condemned the police action. The HRCP had earlier demanded the immediate and unconditional release of its chairperson, alleging that Butt’s detention was a deliberate attempt to intimidate and silence human rights activists.

The organisation denounced the action as an unjust step aimed at suppressing the voices advocating for human rights. Later, talking to Geo News, Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar said that he would ask Karachi’s additional inspector general of police about the incident in which Asad Iqbal Butt was detained.