SHC seeks report on illegal detention of airport attack suspects

The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed federal and provincial law officers, the superintendent of the central prison and others to file comments on a petition against the detention of a suspect in the Karachi airport attack case outside the jail after his release on bail.

Shahnawaz Siddiqui and Iqbal Patel submitted in their petition that their brothers, Sarmad Siddiqui and Nadeem Patel, were released on bail by an anti-terrorism court, but soon after their release they were picked up by personnel of law enforcement agencies on August 10.

They expressed apprehension about the lives of the detainees, alleging that officials of the Counter Terrorism Department were bent upon booking them in false cases. They requested the court to direct the jail authorities to submit close-circuit television camera recording on August 10 and 11 regarding the release of the detainees from the jail. A division bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, issued notices to federal and provincial law officers and called comments from the jail authorities on September 11.