Sindh High Court (SHC) directed the Sindh government on Friday to resolve the issue of the detention of Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi chief Afaq Ahmed within three days; otherwise the court will decide the matter on its own. An SHC division bench including Chief Justice Musheer Alam and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar observed this while hearing two petitions about the detention of Ahmed under the Maintenance of Public Ordinance (MO), imposed by the Home Department. One petition was filed by Amjad Shafqat, brother of the detained Haqiqi leader, and the other by human rights activist Iqbal Kazmi.
Counsel and party leader Advocate Khurram Maqsood, while terming Ahmed’s detention as illegal and violation of court orders, said that his client has been behind bars for the last seven years and eight months in different cases, even after the court has acquitted him in all cases. “The Sindh government, on the wishes of its collation partner the Muttahida Quami Movement, first detained Ahmed on September 28, 2011 under the MPO and after a week, the authorities informed the court that the Haqiqi chief was an absconder in a 10-year-old case. Maqsood said that on the October 29 hearing, when Ahmed was granted bail in that last case and a release order was issued, the Sindh government again detained him under the MPO, even though the Sindh advocate general had assured the court that Ahmed would not be detained again. Earlier on Thursday’s hearing, Advocate General Fatah Malak presented a written statement on behalf of the Home Department regarding Ahmed’s detention under the MPO, arguing that the petitions are non-maintainable because the government has right to detain any citizen on grounds of safeguarding peace and tranquillity under the West Pakistan Maintenance Ordinance 1960. Chief Justice Musheer Alam on the occasion said that maintaining peace and arresting criminals is the primary responsibility of the government.
