PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday directed the interior ministry and provincial home department to inform it about the arrest and expected date of release of Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment by a military court.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Mohammad Daud Khan also ordered the administration of Peshawar Central Prison to provide him proper medical treatment along with diet recommended to him by the relevant doctor for certain ailments he had been suffering from.

The bench issued directives to the federal and provincial governments while hearing a petition filed by Mr. Ansari, seeking orders for the inclusion of the period of his detention in a three years prison sentence awarded by a military court on Feb 10 this year.

The petitioner had gone missing after he was taken into custody by intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat District in Nov 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Ms Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed on Jan 13 that he was in custody of Pakistan army and was being tried by a military court.

Orders proper treatment of ailing convict at Peshawar prison

Qazi Mohammad Anwar, lawyer for the petitioner, said his client was sentenced to three years imprisonment and if he was extended benefit of Section 382-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the period of his detention prior to conviction would be included in his prison term and in that case, he should have been released by now.

He requested the court to issue the order for the release of the petitioner.

The lawyer pointed out that the provincial home department had stated in its reply to the petition that in the light of the judgment of the military court, the petitioner was entitled to the benefit under Section 382-B of the CrPC, but it had yet to ascertain what the date of his arrest was.

Qazi Anwar said on Apr 28, he had met his client in the prison and the petitioner had given him a letter stating that he could not communicate with him freely because of the presence of the officials of prisons there.

He said the petitioner had told him that he had been suffering from some stomach problem and the relevant doctor had advised him to take milk and rice only as regular diet.

The lawyer however added that the petitioner stated that he was given only milk for a single day and he feared that he might be suffering from stomach ulcer.

He said the eyesight of his client had also been affected and he needed immediate treatment for that.

The lawyer added that the prison administration claimed that they had confined the petitioner in a vacant death cell as ‘Hifazati Qaidi’ (protective prisoner) where his neighbours in other death cells were condemned prisoners sentenced to death.

He added that the petitioner claimed that earlier he was kept in a barrack where one of the prisoners had tried to attack him but attitude of other prisoners was normal.

Additional advocate general Waqar Ali and deputy attorney general Mussaratullah Khan appeared for the provincial and federal government respectively.

The latter said at the request of the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad, the interior ministry had requested the foreign affairs ministry to provide assistance to Ms Fauzia Ansari for getting Pakistani visit visa so that she could come here and meet her son.

Hamid Nehal claimed he entered Pakistan with a fake identity card sent in by Facebook friends, who left him in a Kohat hotel on Nov 14, 2012 before he was arrested.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2016