By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A lawmaker from Imran Khan’s party has asked the Federal Constitutional Court to free Sohail Afridi, the ousted chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who has not been seen since Islamabad imposed emergency rule on the province a month ago.
Shandana Gulzar, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) member of the National Assembly, filed the petition on Thursday. It also seeks the release of the provincial assembly speaker, Babar Saleem Swati, the party’s provincial president, Junaid Akbar, and other detained party workers.
Afridi has not been seen since 11 October, when the federal government imposed governor’s rule and an emergency in the north-western province, which borders Afghanistan. Ministers said the move was prompted by the provincial government’s “deliberate disengagement” from the fight against terrorism. The following day, Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry confirmed that Afridi and some of his cabinet members had been taken into preventive custody.
Executive powers have since passed to the governor, Faisal Karim Kundi, who is assisted by an advisory council. The PTI insists that Afridi remains chief minister with the backing of Khan, the jailed former prime minister and party founder.
The petition names the federal interior and defence secretaries, the provincial chief secretary, the provincial home department secretary, the provincial police chief, the Peshawar police chief and deputy commissioner, and the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency as respondents.
It asks the court to order them to disclose where the detainees are held, which authority holds them, what legal provisions have been invoked, and when and why they were taken into custody. It also asks that the detainees be produced in person so that the “legality of any such restraint upon their liberty be examined judicially”.
At its core, the petition asks the court to declare that Articles 232, 234 and 245 of the constitution do not allow anyone to be arrested, held or hidden outside the law. The first two govern the proclamation of an emergency and the takeover of a province, and the third covers deployment of the armed forces. Gulzar argues that none of them can be used to override fundamental rights, including protection from arbitrary detention, personal dignity and freedom of association.
She also seeks access to lawyers and relatives for the detainees, medical examination and treatment, and protection from “torture, coercion, intimidation or any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”. The petition says any action found to be politically motivated or meant to frustrate democratic rights would amount to an abuse of public authority.
Gulzar has asked for the leaders’ immediate release, subject to any lawful order from a competent court. It was not immediately clear when the court would hear the petition.
The filing follows the closing of an earlier legal route. Afridi’s brother, Muhammad Amir, went to the Peshawar High Court on 13 October, alleging that the chief minister had been abducted from the Chief Minister House on 11 October by “unidentified armed and masked individuals” in the presence of the capital city police officer. On 3 November, the high court sent that plea, along with petitions over the alleged abduction of Swati and Akbar, to its chief justice to form a larger bench.
Meanwhile, the Peshawar court had granted interim bail on 31 October to scores of PTI activists held under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance. On 5 November, the Federal Constitutional Court restrained it from hearing such cases. The high court then removed about 105 petitions from its 10 November cause lists, among them challenges to the emergency and governor’s rule, and those over the detention of Afridi, Swati, Akbar and scores of lawmakers.
Separately on Thursday, PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan asked the Federal Constitutional Court to let him join the proceedings over the 5 November order. He is a petitioner in a high court case challenging the imposition of governor’s rule and the emergency. He wants to argue his case before the court or submit a written statement, and asks it to modify the order so that petitions against the emergency and governor’s rule are no longer suspended.
The federal government has said the emergency will remain until security in the province improves. Tensions had risen in the days before it was imposed, after the PTI announced a protest march on Islamabad to demand Khan’s release. Parliament’s joint session later endorsed the measures over opposition protests.
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