Minor handed over to mother in court

LAHORE: Police on Tuesday produced a minor before the Lahore High Court after recovering him from the custody of his father who went into hiding in Katcha area of Rajanpur. On last hearing, Justice Muhammad Tariq Abbasi had sought personal appearance of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, if police failed to recover the child.

Due to unavailability of Justice Abbasi at principal seat, the habeas petition by Ms Yasmin Rasheed was fixed before Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh when the police presented the minor. An additional advocate general told the court that the police recovered the child and his father from Rajanpur. He said the father was in jail following registration of a case against him. The judge handed over the child to the mother and disposed of the petition.

The judge reserved verdict on two separate applications by the government, one for withdrawal of the order of summoning the chief minister and the other for expunging adverse remarks from previous order against IGP Shoaib Dastagir. The Lahore High Court had rebuked Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Shoaib Dastagir for failure to recover the minor from the custody of his father and summoned the CM on next hearing.

“Through previous order, when the CCPO Lahore had failed to satisfy the court about recovery of minor in question, aged about three years, and his availability before the court, the inspector general of police, Punjab was asked to take up the matter into his own hands and ensure the minor before the court today, otherwise for explanation come to the court neither the minor has been recovered nor even the inspector general of police has bothered to attend the court and assign any reason,” Justice Abbasi observed in his order of Feb 6. Later, IGP Dastagir had appeared before the court after an hour, however, could not satisfy the court.