PESHWAR: Abdullah, the 10-year-old son of Mufti Munir Shakir – a religious scholar missing for the past year after being arrested by the Karachi Airport Security – said on Tuesday that intelligence agencies tortured and forced him to state that his father had links with Al Qaeda.
“Intelligence agencies’ personnel tortured me when I said that my father did not even know the word ‘Al Qaeda’,” Abdullah said, adding that the personnel kept him for 15 days in a separate cell after they arrested him along with his father at the Karachi Airport.
Abdullah said he repeatedly turned down an offer for his release without the release of his father. He said he later agreed to be freed following assurances by agencies men that his father would be released within 15 days. He said security personnel later brought him to Governor’s House in Peshawar and released him there. “One year has passed, but the intelligence agencies have yet to release my father,” stated Abdullah, flanked by hundreds of Mufti Shakir’s followers. The scholar’s followers were protesting in front of the Peshawar High Court building to demand that PHC Chief Justice Tariq Parvez Khan take suo motu notice for the safe recovery of Mufti Shakir from “illegal” detention.
Led by Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf leader Iqbal Afridi, the protesters held portraits of Mufti Shakir and shouted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf and intelligence agencies. They also carried placards stating, “Today the government has detained religious scholars and has given singers and dancers freedom.”
Abdullah told Daily Times that intelligence agencies arrested him and his father on May 16, 2006. Iqbal Afridi said that the religious scholar’s relatives had moved the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking his release. He said the intelligence agencies freed many people arrested for alleged links with terrorist organisations, but they had yet to free the religious leader. “Mufti is a preacher of Islam and belongs to the Tableeghi Jamaat,” he added. staff report
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C06%5C06%5Cstory_6-6-2007_pg7_21
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