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Lahore High Court withdraws warrants for Chiniot DPO, other cops

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday disposed of a habeas corpus petition seeking recovery of a girl from alleged custody of Chiniot police and also withdrew arrest warrants earlier issued against the district police officer and others.

Earlier, the alleged victim appeared in the court and stated she was never abducted nor her family wanted any action against the accused police officials. DPO Rana Shahzad Akbar and other accused police officials also appeared in the court and pleaded their innocence.

Justice Chaudhry Shahid Saeed, however, regretted that law enforcers had been found involved in criminal activities and played tricks with courts.

The judge disposed of the petition after the girl said she did not want to continue proceedings against the police.

Hafiz Aslam had filed the petition saying his daughter (S) was subjected to rape and a case was registered with the Sadar police station in Chiniot. He said an assistant sub-inspector Mazhar Husain and other personnel of Sadar police came to his house and took (S) with them to Lahore for her medical examination. But since then she did not return home, Aslam said and alleged that his daughter was in illegal custody of the police.

The petitioner prayed to the court to get his daughter recovered from the police and set her free.

On previous hearing, the judge had issued arrest warrants of the DPO and other police officials following non-appearance of the Mr Akbar in the court and non-recovery of the girl.

Reply sought: The Lahore High Court on Monday issued notices to the ministry of religious affairs and others on a writ petition against alleged changes in an approved list of Khadim-i-Haj (Haj volunteers) from the police department.

A traffic warden, Ali Adnan, filed the petition and stated that the ministry on April 27, 2012, wrote a letter to the inspector general of Punjab police seeking a list of at least 15 police officials who had not performed Haj duty earlier.

He said the police department, after holding a ballot, selected 15 police officials, including him (petitioner) and sent the list to the ministry. He said the ministry approved the list and duly informed the police department through a letter on May 22, 2012.

However, the petitioner said later the ministry, for the reasons best known to it and without any lawful justification, dropped the names of 10 selected officials, including him (Adnan) and included some other names of its own choice in the list.

The petitioner prayed that the impugned act of the ministry should be set aside being illegal and it should be asked to send the names of previously selected officials for performance of duties as Khadim-i-Haj.

After hearing the contention, Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan sought replies from the ministry of religious affairs and other respondents by Tuesday (today).

Dawn