ISLAMABAD  -  Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Farrukh Habib’s wife on Friday requested Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa to take immediate notice of her husband’s “enforced disappearance” while urging his instant recovery.

She said that the whereabouts of the former state minister for information and broadcasting were unknown since last month and his entire family was deeply concerned about his safety and well-being.

In her letter to the CJP, the wife of the young politician from Faisalabad claimed that Farrukh was “illegally picked up by unknown men” from Gwadar city of Balochistan on September 28. But he has not yet been presented before any court, in a clear violation of his fundamental right to fair trial and access to justice, she added. 

She expressed her apprehensions that her husband was being tortured and humiliated with the objective to change his political loyalties. “There is a calculated method behind this madness, this has happened to all the political leaders who have been abducted so far,” she also said.

She said that Farrukh, who was PTI President of the west region of Punjab, was a “well-respected and law-abiding citizen”, who has been a member of the National Assembly from August 2018 till April 2022.”

“I crave your gracious indulgence into this matter of serious nature because my husband’s and his family’s fundamental rights guaranteed under the constitution are being brazenly violated,” she said. “Since I am choiceless, helpless and hapless. Therefore, I request you to take meaningful notice and address my grievance,” she appealed to the chief justice.

Farrukh’s wife feared that it appeared, every effort under state supervision had been employed to make sure her husband becomes and stays as a missing person.

As it is well-established and documented now, the current regime is perpetrating grave human rights violations and carrying out unprovoked brutal crackdown on political activists, workers, and leaders, the letter says, a copy of which has also been dispatched to the Human Rights Cell of the Supreme Court (SC). As a result of this, nearly all PTI workers and leaders are forced into hiding to keep themselves safe, it added.

It further says that Farrukh followed the same suit but he was whisked away from Gwadar by members of Punjab police, law enforcement agencies of Balochistan and some unknown person in plain clothes.

“We have filed a habeas corpus petition in the Lahore High Court for recovery of Farrukh, which directed the Punjab Police chief to submit a report on his whereabouts,” the wife of the politician informed the CJP. The petition is progressing at snail’s pace and so far, no progress has been noticed, she lamented in the letter.

Even otherwise, she stated, the court orders were blatantly flouted by the executive authorities in the last few months. She feared that the same would happen in Farrukh’s case as well.

“Under these circumstances, I must request you to take immediate notice of my husband’s enforced disappearance, ascertain his fate, whereabouts and ensure his recovery,” she appealed. She said that the recent increase in cases of abductions and enforced disappearances was alarming. “The intervention of the apex court was crucial in safeguarding the rights and well-being of individuals subjected to enforced disappearances,” the letter reads.