Sunday, Nov 17, 2002
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By B. Muralidhar Reddy
The court has now set Tuesday as the fresh deadline to the Government to produce Dr. Aziz who was allegedly picked up on October 21. Strangely for the second time this week the Interior Ministry told the court that Dr. Aziz's "whereabouts were still not known". Religious parties and the doctors' community in Pakistan have been up in arms against the arrest of Dr. Aziz. After he was whisked away, his family members and friends alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. had taken him away. However, three days later, the Interior Minister, Moinuddin Haider, said that Dr. Aziz was in the custody of Pakistan intelligence agencies. He conceded that the doctor, who had reportedly been in and out of Afghanistan, was detained on the basis of interrogation of prisoners from Afghanistan at the Guantanamo Bay. The judge has also restrained the Government from extraditing the former chief executive of Jinnah Hospital without the leave of the court. Lt. Gen. (retd) Haider has already gone on record that Dr. Aziz would not be extradited. The first production order was issued on Wednesday after the Deputy Attorney-General (DAG), Danishwar Malik, failed to comply with the directive to secure the version of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) through the Interior Secretary on the status of Dr. Aziz. The Deputy Attorney-General told the court that the ISI was not part of the Interior Ministry and the court could not issue a directive for the production of a detainee. The judge observed in his order that the DAG had submitted that Dr. Aziz was not with the intelligence bureau and the reply from the ISI was still awaited. He had submitted that he was not sure whether Dr. Aziz was being detained by the ISI or not and directed the government to produce the doctor on Friday. The judge observed that the DAG had contended that the court could not issue a production order to the ISI in view of restrictions imposed under Article 191 of the Constitution. He observed that the fact that Dr. Aziz was detained but the Interior Ministry was not aware of the place of his detention and grounds thereof could not be believed. He observed that he would not like to comment any further on the detention of Dr. Aziz in connection with the terrorist activities of an organisation. In no civilised country a court should condone any of such acts. The judge observed that Dr. Aziz was a citizen of the country and was entitled to all the rights under Article 4 of the Constitution that mandated that protection under the law was an inalienable right of all citizens. The judge observed in his order that Article 10 of the Constitution provided that no arrested person shall be detained without observing due process of law. Moreover, every person placed under detention would be informed about the grounds of his arrest as soon as possible and shall not be denied the right to be defended by the counsel of his choice. The judge observed that the Constitution also provided that every arrested person shall be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of being taken into custody excluding the time necessary for the journey to the court and shall not be kept in detention beyond the period prescribed by him. When the case came up for on Friday the government counsel sought to argue that the ISI was under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence and the reply of the ISI on whether it had picked up the doctor was still awaited. The judge disagreed with the Government counsel and directed him to produce the doctor by Tuesday positively.
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