KARACHI, July 30: On the directives of a sessions court, a bailiff raided on Tuesday the Clifton police station and recovered three men apparently kept there in wrongful confinement.

The bailiff got the three detainees — Mohammad Iqbal, Zakir and Yasin — released on personal bonds and directed the SHO and duty officer to appear before the sessions court on Wednesday.

The bailiff said that he along with the applicant raided the police station and found the detainees confined in the lock-up, but the police failed to produce any FIR or any other solid evidence to justify their detention.

There was a doubtful entry made under Section 54 (when police may arrest without warrant) of the criminal procedure code (CrPC) before the raid, he added.

Mohammad Iqbal filed a habeas corpus application under Section 491 of CrPC submitting that his three relatives were scrap dealers at Qayyumabad and they were picked up by the police on July 26.

The applicant said that the police had been levelling allegations against them of purchasing stolen articles and demanding a bribe for their release.

He maintained that the victims were being kept in wrongful confinement for the past four days at the Clifton police station and asked the court for their recovery.

After a preliminary hearing, Additional District and Sessions Judge (south) Sohail Jabbar Malik appointed the bailiff as a raid commissioner and directed him to carry out a raid on the information of the applicant and recover the detainee if found in wrongful confinement.

Policeman fined

A judicial magistrate imposed a fine of Rs3,000 on a policeman as he failed to produce a suspect in court in an illicit weapon case.

The police arrested suspect Jamal Wali last month in the SITE area and claimed to have recovered an unlicensed pistol from his possession. He was booked under the Pakistan Arms Ordinance, 1965.

The court granted bail to the suspect against a surety bond of Rs10,000 a few weeks ago. However, he did not appear before the court after getting bail.

Interestingly, Head Constable Bakht Munir of the same police station was the guarantor of the suspect and the court imposed a fine on him and directed him to produce the suspect in court on the next hearing.