Comments sought on plea against abduction of airport attack suspects

The Sindh High Court on Monday directed the additional IG of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and the Jamshed Quarters SHO to file comments on a petition accusing law enforcers of harassing the families of two airport attack suspects who were allegedly detained outside the central jail shortly after their 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 law enforcement agencies on August 10.

They said the detainees were released after an illegal detention of one month and expressed apprehension about their lives, alleging that officials of CTD officials were trying to booking them in false cases. The petitioners said they were also being harassed by CTD officers and requested the court to refrain the police from booking the detainees in fresh cases without the court’s permission.

The additional advocate general sought time to file comments on behalf of the CTD AIG and the SHO concerned.  Headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, the division bench granted last chance to the provincial law officer to submit comments and put off the hearing till November 13.  

Knife attack case

The SHC issued notices to the federal and provincial law officers on a petition seeking direction to the Sindh Rangers and the Federal Investigation Agency to probe the knife attack cases in the city. Petitioner Atam Parkash submitted that police had failed to arrest the apparently lone attacker who had injured around 12 women in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Gulshan-e-Iqbal. He said the federal government may be directed to interfere in the matter and the Rangers should be asked to probe into the matter.  After preliminary hearing of the petition subject to its maintainability, the court issued notices to the federal and provincial law officers and called their comments on November 21.