LAHORE: A Supreme Court division bench on Wednesday directed the Prisons authorities to immediately remove chains of Mehr Abdul Sattar, the general secretary of Anjuman Mazareen Punjab. The bench was hearing an appeal filed by Sattar’s wife against what she said was registration of false cases against him and inhuman treatment meted out to him in the prison. Appellate counsel Asma Jahangir also challenged authorities’ decision to shift Sattar from the Sahiwal central jail to a high security jail in the same district without a mandatory judicial order. She said Sattar’s only crime was that he had demanded rights to land made cultivable by tenants who were organised under the platform of the AMP. An under-trial prisoner could not be shifted from one jail to another without a judicial order. But the home secretary ordered that Sattar should be shifted to the high security prison and the government approached the court for permission for the purpose afterwards, Jahangir said. She said the high security jail was meant for convicted terrorists and hardened criminals, and not for those still facing a trial. Jahangir asserted that the administrative order of the secretary was against prison rules. She also brought to the bench’s notice that Sattar was being kept in chains permanently. “This inhuman treatment is in clear violation of the law,” she said. A law officer representing the government responded that Sattar was shifted in view of security issues and there was no illegality involved. He said the order was issued to ensure safety of the prisoner. He said whenever Sattar was brought to the court for hearing of cases registered against him hundreds of peasants gather at the scene creating a security situation. Jahangir replied that it was strange that the administration only found presence of struggling peasants to be a security threat. No such objection is raised when supporters of rich litigants throng court premises. Later, the bench ordered that Sattar’s chains should immediately be removed and observed that the court would further look into the case record to ascertain the procedure for shifting of an under trial prisoner to a high security jail. The hearing of the appeal was postponed till September with directions to jail authorities for letting Sattar’s relatives and counsel meet him at the jail premises. Separately, the Lahore High Court deferred till September 29 the hearing of a post-arrest bail application of Sattar. Published in Daily Times, August 24th 2017.