Daily Times

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court asked the provincial home secretary, provincial chiefs of Rangers and police, and the city’s commissioner to file their replies to a petition challenging the detention of a Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) London leader under Maintenance of Public Order.

A division bench headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto was hearing an application filed by the petitioner seeking early hearing of the petition. The court once again issued notice to the respondent authorities and set November 04 for the next hearing.

Naz Khalid Kunwar, the wife of MQM leader Kunwar Khalid Younus Ali Khan, had filled a petition in the high court seeking his release.

On Monday, the petitioner’s counsel filed an application pleading the court to fix the matter as early as possible as the petitioner’s detained spouse was seriously ill and needed urgent medical treatment.

In the petition, she submitted that the Rangers personnel had arrested her spouse along with other MQM leaders from outside Karachi Press Club on October 21, 2016 as they were going to address a press conference. Later, she said, she came to know through the media that her spouse was detained with other leaders under MPO.

She told the judges that there were no criminal charges against Kunwar Khalid who had been the member of the National Assembly. She apprehended that her spouse would be implicated in fictitious criminal cases.

The woman petitioner stated that her husband was a senior citizen and suffering from various diseases. The family members were not being allowed to see him in prison, she lamented.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that the detention order was illegal and unconstitutional and against the principle of natural justice. The law enforcement agencies are bound to treat every citizen equally but they are overriding certain provisions of the Constitution which guarantees protection of lives of all citizens, freedom of speech and freedom of movement.

Therefore, she pleaded the court to declare the detention of the petitioner’s spouse as illegal and order his release. The court was further requested to direct the jail authorities to allow relatives of detainee to meet him in prison.