SHC issues notices to police, Rangers on pleas against enforced disappearances

The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued notices to federal and provincial law officers, Sindh inspector general of police and the Rangers on petitions against alleged enforced disappearances of a citizen by law enforcement agencies’ personnel.

The petitioners, Shabana Begum and Sikandar Hilal, submitted in the petitions that personnel of law enforcement agencies picked up Umer Musab, an entomologist in ministry of food’s department of plant protection and Ashir Hilal from Shahrah-e-Noor Jehan and Malir areas and their whereabouts were unknown.

They submitted that police and law enforcement agencies personnel were not disclosing the whereabouts of the detainees and they were not being produced before any court of the law. A counsel for the petitioner submitted that Musab had been missing since December 5. The SHC was informed that the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) officials also visited the residence of the petitioner and made search without warrants.

He submitted that there was a probability that the detainee was in the custody of the FIA but they were not disclosing his whereabouts. A counsel for the other detainee submitted that armed persons, some of who were in police uniform, had picked up Hilal on November 17 and since then his whereabouts were unknown.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Faisal Kamal Alam after a preliminary hearing of the petitions issued notices to federal and provincial law officers, inspector general of police and the Rangers, and in the meantime directed them to file comments with regard to the whereabouts of detainees on the next hearing.

Plea for infrastructure

The SHC dismissed a petition with regard to protection of civic infrastructure during the construction of the Red Line project as not maintainable.

The petitioner, Waqef Shah, had submitted that citizens of Karachi faced extreme hardship due to leakage of an 84-inch water line during the construction of the Red Line project and citizens were deprived of water for two weeks due to repair work of the water line.

He submitted that due to delay in the repair work, citizens had to buy water worth Rs5 billion from water tankers during the 23 day crisis. He requested the high court to direct the KMC and other civic agencies to ensure close vigilance coordination during the execution of Red Line project so that such negligent incident may not occurr in future.