Daily Times

LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday ordered the Station Head Officer (SHO) at Naseerabad Police Station to present the missing peace activist Raza Mehmood Khan on the next hearing scheduled for December 22.

In what was termed as a ‘positive development’, Justice Qazi Ameen Ahmad ordered Attorney General and the SHO to get their act together and retrieve Raza and present him before the court within four days.

Talking to Daily Times, Raza’s close friend, and lawyer, Sohail Afzal Khan told that Asma Jahangir presented Raza’s case eloquently before the judge, apprising him about Raza’s activities as a peace activist and how the family had been suffering due to his alleged abduction by the security forces.

In the previous hearing on December 13, the court had ordered the SHO to submit his answer on December 19. The case was being heard by Justice Anwar ul-Haq at the time. Raza’s brother Hamid Nasir Mehmood had filed the petition invoking Article 199 of the constitution of Pakistan.

He maintained that the respondents in the case, including the government of Pakistan, government of Punjab, Punjab Police Inspector General and the Station Head Officer of Naseerabad police station, ‘be issued a notice and directed to search for the abductee and to report to this Honourable Court, the location and the circumstances under which the abductee disappeared’.

Raza had gone missing on December 2 after he attended a talk on the issue of Faizabad sit-in.

Also read: Raza Khan case: Court order ‘very concerning’ for family, says Aaghaz-e-Dosti

Volunteers from Aaghaz-e-Dosti, an Indo-Pak friendship initiative, said after the last hearing that allowing the respondent six days to submit the answer in a Habeas Corpus case could lead to unnecessary delays while the family of the missing person was highly concerned about his life and safety. They had expressed complete trust in Pakistan’s judicial system.