KARACHI, Jan 21: The Sindh High Court asked the Karachi deputy inspector-general of police for operations on Wednesday to look into the ‘disappearance’ of two persons not seen or heard of since September-October 2008.

Osama Waheed went missing along with a high-roof van after seeing off his father, Abdul Waheed, who was going to Sukkur, at the cantonment railway station on September 14, 2008. He is a brother of Doctors Akmal Waheed and Arshad Waheed, who were detained for treating the banned outfit Jundullah’s activists in 2006.

Dr Arshad Waheed, who was ordered released by the high court along with his brother, later died in bombing in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The petition has been filed by the alleged detainee’s younger brother, Ajmal Waheed.

Advocates Ilyas Khan and Mohammad Farooq submitted on behalf of the petitioner that Osama had been picked up and detained on mere suspicion and without the due process of law. If there was any charge or inquiry against him, he should have been proceeded against in due course of law. The counsel requested the court to order production and recovery of the detainee.

Another ‘missing’ person, Zeeshan Jalil, was taken away by plainclothesmen in a white Toyota car from an engineer’s office on Shahrah-i-Quaideen on October 18, 2008.

The captors first intercepted Ibrahim Jalil, his brother, but were told by their superiors that he was not the person they were looking for. They made Ibrahim call his brother and ask him to come over to Shahrah-i-Quaideen. Zeeshan was picked up when he reached the Shahrah. The alleged detainee’s wife, Asifa Zeeshan, said in her petition that her husband had no links to any terrorist organisation.

A division bench consisting of Justices Khilji Arif Hussain and Arshad Noor Khan ordered the DIG (operations) to make all efforts to ascertain the whereabouts of the detainees so that their production could be ordered by the court. The officer was asked to submit his report by February 3, when the petition would again come up for hearing. The police have already denied arresting or detaining the two persons.

Another division bench comprising Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Faisal Arab, meanwhile, asked Deputy Attorney-General Amer Raza Naqvi to submit the interior ministry’s comments on the arrest and surrender of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, an alleged Al Qaeda leader.

Petitioner Mst Maryam has submitted through Advocate Ghulam Qadir Jatoi that her relatives, Ramzi Yusuf, Abdul Qadir and Khalid Shaikh were picked up one by one and made over to foreign authorities without any legal proceedings. Being Pakistani nationals, they had a right to be tried within the country.

DAG Naqvi produced the interior ministry’s comments saying that none of the detainees was in the custody of any of the three agencies – that is, the Federal Investigation Agency, the Sindh Rangers and the Islamabad police – working under it. The bench asked the law officer to find out how the alleged detainees were sent abroad if they were not taken into custody. Further hearing was adjourned to February 12.

Meanwhile, the Sindh High Court adjourned on Wednesday the hearing of a petition challenging the decision to confirm one of its additional judges and extend the tenure of two others until after two weeks to enable the federal and provincial law officers to file their comments.

The petition, moved by the Sindh High Court Bar Association, says that all appointments and reappointments made in the superior judiciary after the imposition of emergency on Nov 3, 2007, were unconstitutional and illegal because of the absence of the ‘de jure’ chief justice, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. Without prejudice to the generality of the legal formulation, the association seeks writs against Justices Bin Yamin, Syed Pir Ali Shah and Arshad Noor Khan because, according to it, they had not been recommended either for confirmation or for extension by incumbent SHC Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali. The first-mentioned was confirmed as a judge, while Justices S.P.A. Shah and A.N. Khan were given six months’ extension each as additional judge.

Without seeking any direction, the petitioner claims that Justice Dr Qamaruddin Bohra was relieved despite a recommendation to the contrary by the CJ. Justice Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan was ‘reappointed’ as a permanent judge and given the benefit of 1994-95 stint in deviation from the CJ’s opinion and the 1996 Supreme Court verdict in Al Jehad Trust case. The petition came up before a division bench comprising CJ Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Faisal Arab and Advocate Mohammad Yusuf Leghari and Deputy Attorney-General Amer Raza Naqvi sought time to file comments. Advocate Yawar Faruqui sought to join in the proceedings on behalf of Justice Syed Pir Ali Shah and Advocate Javed Alam on behalf of Justice Bin Yamin.

The AG drew the CJ’s attention to the averments made in the petition relying on his ‘confidential’ opinion in respect of the respondent judges. Stopping short of raising a formal objection to the composition of the division bench, he pointed out that it was the CJ’s opinion which constituted the subject-matter of the petition.