LAHORE
Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain on Wednesday turned down the request of Abdul Manan, reporter of an English daily newspaper, for exemption from personal appearance on a petition seeking recovery of a missing doctor of the Jinnah Hospital. Manan had filed a story about the abduction of Dr Ali Abdullah by secret agencies personnel for his alleged involvement in terrorist activities. The court had asked the reporter to tell the story’s source but he had refused to do so on which the court had directed him to join the investigation during which he was proved innocent.
Manna appeared in court during the last eight proceedings of the case. On Wednesday, the reporter’s counsel, Azhar Siddique, requested the court that due to Manan’s busy schedule, he could not appear in court on every hearing of the case. He requested the court to exempt the reporter from personal appearance and said that he would appear in court whenever required. The judge observed that it was the duty of reporters to wander around the city searching for news and it should not be a problem for him to come to court for only 10 minutes. The judge rejected the request and asked Manan to appear in court until the petition was disposed off.
On the court’s direction, Superintendent of Organised Crimes Umar Virk and Superintendent of Police (SP) (Investigation) Model Town Abdul Rab appeared in court and said that they had asked Manan to disclose the source of his story. Virk said that he had contacted police stations across the country but Dr Abdullah was not in police custody. He said that police were trying to trace the doctor’s motorcycle on which the court granted three weeks time to police for locating the doctor.
Abdullah’s father had filed a petition seeking early recovery of his son.
