Missing university student killed by Rangers, SHC told

A university student missing since 2015 was killed by the Rangers in an encounter last year, the investigating police officer of the case told the Sindh High Court on Thursday.

Mohammad Asif said in his petition that his brother Kashif, a final-year student of BTech, went to the National Database Registration Authority office in Korangi on August 17, 2015, adding that he was allegedly picked up at the behest of Abdul Sattar, with whom Kashif had had a scuffle.

The investigating officer of the case informed the court that the missing student was killed in an encounter with the Sindh Rangers in Ittehad Town last October. The SHC’s division bench headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto said Asif’s petition had become infructuous because his missing brother had been killed in an encounter.

Disposing of the petition, the court said the petitioner was free to adopt any legal course of action if he were dissatisfied with the Rangers’ encounter. In another case of a missing person who was killed in a police encounter, the court took exception to the no-show of the Manghopir police’s IO and issued a show-cause notice over it.

The court was informed in the previous hearing that Maulana Yousuf Quddusi, who had been missing since last April 8 from Orangi Town, was killed in a police encounter in Manghopir this February 24.

The court had directed the IO to appear in court along with the investigation report of the police encounter in which Quddusi was killed, but the officer failed to show up. The SHC directed him to present himself in court on October 23 and explain his non-appearance.

The bench also directed the relevant SSPs to make efforts to recover all the missing persons whose cases were pending in court and submit their progress reports in the next hearing. The SHC also dismissed the bail petitions of a Board of Revenue (BoR) officer and others in a case relating to illegal allotments in the Pakistan Post Office Employees’ Co-operative Housing Society.

The BoR’s Zamir Ahmed, the housing society’s office-bearer Younus Baloch and a private builder Haji Ismail were booked as co-accused by the National Accountability Bureau in a reference pertaining to illegal transfer of 18 acres of society land to private builders. The court said the anti-graft watchdog had sufficient evidence to prove the guilt of the accused in the trial court and dismissed the bail petitions.

NAB voluntary return scheme

The SHC directed the provincial chief secretary to file his statement regarding removal from posts of government officers who benefited from the National Accountability Bureau’s voluntary return scheme.

Hearing bail petitions of district accounts officer Ghulam Mustafa and others in corruption cases, the court inquired of the chief secretary whether the government officers were removed from their posts or not.

The CS claimed that officers involved in corruption cases have been removed from posts and departmental inquiries have been initiated against them. The court directed the chief secretary to submit a statement along with an affidavit regarding the matter on the next date of hearing.

PPP leaders in govt ads

The Sindh High Court has directed the provincial information ministry and other respondents to file comments on a petition seeking orders to restrain the Pakistan Peoples Party-led provincial government from using photographs of PPP leaders, living or deceased, in government advertisements.

The provincial law officer informed the court that comments from the government have yet to be finalised and sought more time to file a reply. The court granted the request and directed the law officer to submit the reply by November 7. 

Petitioners Nazim Haji and Syed Mureed Ali Shah have submitted in the petition that the provincial government, in order to sponsor and illegally benefit the ruling party, has been displaying pictures of its leaders in government advertisements in various newspapers.

The petitioners observed that the advertising was done with the sole motive to promote the political party’s leaders in the eyes of the innocent general public for political, electoral and monetary gain. 

They submitted that this kind of advertising carried out with the public’s money to advance political and personal status of the political party’s leaders was discriminatory to other political parties and citizens of Pakistan who have been directly and adversely affected from the commission of such offences.

The information department was unceasingly publishing advertisements in various newspapers showing pictures of unofficial persons using national money, despite the fact that public funds cannot be spent for the personal promotion or political advantage of a party, the petitioners maintained. Furthermore, the petitioners also cited NAB’s reference filed against a former provincial information minister and others for misusing public funds in the name of government’s awareness campaign advertisements.

The court was requested to restrain the information department and its officers from misusing, wasting of public funds on government advertisements with the intention to project provincial ruling political party of Sindh’s living and deceased leaders.