The Sindh High Court (SHC) disposed of the petition of a detainee against filing of challan in the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) with directions that the petitioner should first approach the trial court concerned for redressing his grievance.

The court was hearing the petition against detention of Shahid Rind by his counsel who alleged that detainee was illegally booked in kidnapping-for-ransom case.

The petitioner’s counsel, Adnan Karim, submitted that the CID police arrested the detainee on July 28 last year while he was travelling in a bus from Hub to Karachi and during detention he was tortured by police to admit that he was Bahadur Brohi, brother of alleged gangster Mashooq Brohi.

The petition against detention was filed in the SHC and the court after finding illegality in arrest of detainee ordered ATC to conduct identification parade of the accused after the police report.

Police submitted that the charge-sheet was filed against the accused, Bahadur Brohi, whose description matched that of the detainee. Police said there were reasons to assume that detainee had also assumed the name of Bahadur Brohi and he was wanted for the purpose of conducting the identification parade.

The counsel submitted that police, in violation of the SHC order, conducted the identification parade of the accused in jail instead of ATC and falsely implicated him in the kidnapping-for-ransom case. The court was prayed to quash the proceedings against the detainee and in meantime suspend the criminal proceedings against the detainee.

Following the court notice, Investigation Officer Attequr Rehman submitted a report stating that FIR was lodged in Sachal police regarding kidnapping of four persons Kamran Akram, Mohammad Farooq, Amir Sajid and Adil Mughal who were released by their captors after payment of ransom of Rs1.2 million.

The IO said two co-accused Saeed and Ibrahim were arrested by the police who confessed to their involvement in the offence and mentioned the names of co-accused namely Mashooq Brohi, Bahadur Brohi, Ghous Brohi and others. He said after receiving information that petitioner Shahid Rind, alias Bahadur Brohi, had been sent to jail in connection with some other cases, the custody of accused was obtained in the said case and permission was sought by the ATC for conducting his identification parade inside the jail which was subsequently granted by the ATC.

The IO said that all the four abducted and another witness, Yaseen Abid, had identified the accused during the identification parade as the one who, along with other co-accused, kidnapped them and subsequently the challan was submitted against him before the ATC.

The SHC division bench after perusal of the report and hearing the arguments of the petitioner and provincial law officer, disposed of the petition with direction to petitioner to first challenge the impugned charge-sheet and identification parade before the concerned trial court and later it would be open to him to file fresh proceedings against such orders.