CJP's Arrest of a potential defence witness arrested

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Arrest of a potential defence witness of CJP

A potential defence witness of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was arrested within a few hundreds meters of the Supreme Court on the Constitutional Avenue on Monday and immediately flown to Karachi.

It could just be a routine operation of the Sindh Police to arrest its ex-Mirpurkhas DIG Saleemullah Khan against whom an FIR was lodged by the provincial police but his wife smelled a ***. She accuses the government of arresting her husband to stop him from appearing before the Supreme Judicial Council in defence of the chief justice.

The DIG, at present under suspension, had recently appeared in a Geo talk show “Capital Talk” and explained how he was directed by the Sindh chief minister to ignore the directive of the chief justice. The Sindh chief minister, however, denied the charges and said that the officer had played a dubious role.

Talking to The News on Tuesday, Khan’s wife said that she never thought that her husband will have to face all this for implementing the orders of the Supreme Court. “What is our crime? We are getting such a horrific punishment just for following the chief justice’s orders,” the lady said, adding that she is a heart patient while her only daughter — an A-level student — is completely shattered at this situation.

Khan’s wife disclosed that her husband has also not received salary for the last four months because of which the family is really hard pressed. This correspondent met Khan’s family at their rented house in G-6/4 , whose condition and furnishing seemed to be quite below the living standard one expects from the family of a police DIG.

Khan’s wife said that her husband was arrested on the Constitution Avenue and was flown to Karachi without giving him the opportunity to collect his medicines, clothes etc. from his house. Saleemullah, according to his wife, is a blood pressure patient.

The DIG’s wife said that she is in complete dark as to where her husband is and what the Sindh administration is doing to him. “When I contacted the lawyer in Karachi, he told me that he has not been informed of the whereabouts of the police officer.”

Khan’s wife alleged that her family was losing everything just because her husband was not ready to follow the unlawful dictates of the Sindh chief minister. “Forget about the job of my husband, our foremost concern is his life and safe return,” she said. She demanded that the Supreme Court should take a suo motu notice of the case and ensure her husband’s immediate return to Islamabad.

The suspended DIG’s wife said that the “farce” FIR was lodged against her husband on October 22, 2006 on the directive of the provincial chief minister but he was never arrested. “He was even in Karachi last month and has been freely moving there but no one arrested him,” she said, wondering that what happened now that he was arrested from Islamabad as if he was an absconder.

She disclosed that her husband was willing to appear before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) to give his account about what had happened to him when the chief justice took suo motu notices of certain cases of human rights violations in his jurisdiction in Mirpurkhas.

Khan’s wife said that an example was being made of her husband for refusing to follow the dictates of the mighty in Sindh. “Now, no one would dare to stand against feudals and landlords,” she said.

Khan had invited the wrath of Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim after he probed some high profile cases, including the Munno Bheel case, following the suo motu actions taken by the chief justice.

She said a feudal lord had allegedly abducted 13 members of the family of Munno Bheel, who have been missing for the last nine years. Munno Bheel had been protesting for the last nine years for the recovery of his kith and kin but nobody helped him.

However, following the directive of the chief justice, she said, Saleemullah Khan registered an FIR against the feudal, who was very well-connected and got the chief minister involved in the case. When the DIG decided to follow the directive of the chief justice, he was suspended by the chief minister, who claimed that the DIG was about to register a criminal case against his superiors. The feudal lord has his private jails and torture cells.

In another case, Naeem Arain, who had rebelled against the same feudal, was arrested on the directive of the same feudal and tortured severely. The DIG suspended the SHOs. This had also annoyed the chief minister.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=7853

As if the target killing of Syed Hammad Raza was not enough that the government has arrested this second man.

Never before have we heard of a police officer being arrested in this manner

 

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The wife of former DIG police, Mirpurkhas, Saleemullah Khan on Wednesday implored journalists: “Please save my husband from extra-judicial killing.”

Talking to The News, Mrs Khan said that her spouse had been sent to the Mirpurkhas Jail against the court orders. She said that her husband’s life was in danger in Sindh, in general, and particularly in the Mirpurkhas Jail,

where more than a dozen police officials suspended and jailed by Khan on the Supreme Court’s orders were lodged in the same prison.

She said that the Sessions Court before which the ex-DIG was produced on Tuesday had sent her husband to the Hyderabad Jail but the Sindh government had shifted him to Mirpurkhas.

When produced before the Mirpurkhas Sessions Court on Tuesday, Saleemullah Khan told newsmen that he had been arrested from Islamabad by the Sindh Police on the orders of the Sindh chief minister. Khan also feared that he could be killed extra-judicially because he had followed the Supreme Court’s orders, which had annoyed the provincial chief minister.

Khan also confirmed that he wanted to appear as a defence witness for Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry before the Supreme Judicial Council. He told newsmen that after being arrested from Islamabad, he was flown to Karachi in a special plane of the Sindh governor as if he was a most-wanted criminal.

The lawyers’ community in Mirpurkhas has decided to support the ex-DIG for the reason that Khan had done what he had been directed by the chief justice of Pakistan.

President of the Mirpurkhas Bar, Salahuddin Panwhar, has reportedly said that the government was deliberately victimizing the defence witnesses of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

In Islamabad, Mrs Khan is running from pillar to post to get her husband back from Sindh. She said that neither she and nor her daughter were allowed to talk to the ex-DIG. Also, none of their relatives was permitted to meet Khan in the Mirpurkhas Jail.

Mrs Khan is a cardiac patient, while the ex-DIG’s only daughter is an A-level student. According to Mrs Khan, the arrest of her husband had disturbed her daughter at a time when she was about to take her final exams.

The ex-DIG Mirpurkhas had invited the wrath of Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim after he probed into some high-profile cases, including the Munno Bheel case, following the suo moto action taken by the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

In the Munno Bheel case, a feudal lord had allegedly abducted 13 members of the Munno Bheel family, who have been missing for the last nine years. Munno Bheel has been protesting for the last nine years for the recovery of his family members, but nobody helped him.

Mrs Khan said that following directions from the chief justice, the-then DIG Mirpurkhas, Salimullah Khan, had registered an FIR against the influential feudal lord, who had directly involved the chief minister in the case.

When the DIG decided to implement the directions of the chief justice in any case, he was suspended by the chief minister, who claimed that the DIG was about to register a criminal case against his superiors. The feudal lord is reported to have private jails and torture cells.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=56366

 

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Ex-DIG police granted bail

Second additional sessions judge Mirpurkhas Ahmed Luqman Memon on Monday granted bail to ex-DIG Rana Saleemullah Khan in a case registered against him here at Town Police Station. The bail was granted to the ex-DIG in case U/S 506(ii), 220, 110-B, 353, 147, 148, 149 and 34 PPC against a surety of Rs 50,000.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=8020

 

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Court rejects 5th plea for ex-DIG’s remand

SANGARH: Sangarh District and Sessions Judge Kausar Sultana rejected Sangarh investigation police’s plea seeking a 15-day physical remand of the former Mirpurkhas DIG Saleemullah Khan in a kidnapping case registered against him in Khapro. This marked the Sangarh police’s fifth attempt for a physical remand of the former DIG to be rejected by a court.

Saleemullah is a witness of the suspended chief justice of Pakistan in the reference pending before the Supreme Court. The investigators seeking his remand had also requested the court to shift Saleemullah from Mirpurkhas to Sanghar district jail.

Legal DSP Mohammad Aslam Gill argued the police wanted to get a physical remand because Khan was not cooperating with investigators. The counsels of the accused, Salahuddin Panwar and SM Aslam, opposed the police’s plea by arguing that their client’s statement had been recorded under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code and he had appeared before the Khapro civil court. They urged the court to reject the police’s plea. After considering both sides’ arguments, the judge rejected the police’s request.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\05\27\story_27-5-2007_pg7_27