The Sindh High Court on Friday directed the Rangers director general to ensure that paramilitary troops do not bring the force into disrepute on account of personal vendettas.
A division bench, headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, gave this direction while hearing a petition that levelled serious allegations against the Rangers’ officials for detaining and persecuting the petitioners.
Petitioners, Muhammad Yaqoob, Muhammad Yousuf and Tajamal Hussain Akhtar submitted that Yaqoob’s brother-in-law, Rangers’ Lance Naik Sultan Mehmood, used his official position to get a false case registered against them over family dispute. However, they added, the case was disposed of as B Class with approval of the judicial magistrate when the complainant failed to substantiate the allegations hurled against them.
They said the Rangers personnel was still harassing and threatening them with dire consequences. They stated that they had complained to the Rangers’ higher officers against him but no action was taken against him. Therefore, the petitioners pleaded the court to direct the Rangers DG to take action against him and restrain him from harassing them.
In compliance with the court order, headed by Major Hammad Arif, a committee carried out an inquiry into the matter and exonerated Mehmood from all allegations levelled against him.
After going through the verdict of judicial magistrate, the judges observed that the judicial magistrate who, while appreciating that no evidence was produced in support of the case, clearly held that all the witnesses were produced by Mehmood. They noted that the relevant portion of the order reflects involvement of Mehmood who exploited his official position and was instrumental in registration of the case but the inquiry committee did not even reprimand him which proved that the inquiry was just an eyewash.
Justice Sajjad said Yaqoob had levelled serious allegations against the officials of paramilitary troops that he was detained for two days when he proceeded to have his statement recorded before the inquiry officer.
However, the judges ruled that without dilating upon the allegation levelled, they would direct the Rangers DG to ensure that Rangers’ troops should not on account of personal vendettas discredit the well-earned reputation of the Rangers. The bench further directed the DG to task a responsible officer to look into veracity of the matter and to ensure that in future no such incident is reported to the court. Let a proper response be filed in court within a week, the court ordered.
