ISLAMABAD, June 10: An ex-serviceman, who had been picked up and brutally tortured, moved the Supreme Court on Monday seeking an order for the constitution of a parliamentary committee for reassessing the role of secret agencies, including the Military Intelligence and the Inter-Services Intelligence.

The re-evaluation by the parliamentary committee will help avoid crippling of young soldiers and end the recovery of mutilated dead bodies, Naik Mohammad Iqbal said in his application filed in the court through Advocate Inamul Raheem.

Mr Iqbal was taken into custody by intelligence agencies on Nov 27, 2004, when his battalion was deployed on the Leepa Front in Azad Kashmir but, according to his counsel, he was never informed about the charges.

Mr Iqbal claimed in the application that his detention was kept so secret that even his family was not informed about his sudden disappearance. The family members were made to believe that he had disappeared without the knowledge and notice of his unit. He said he was thrown in front of his house in 2008 at midnight, half dead and almost blind.

Mr Iqbal has also requested for a high-level inquiry to determine legality and the mandate of the treatment meted out to him by secret agencies during his captivity.

He requested the court to hold responsible the entire chain of command, including the corps commanders, directors general of ISI and the MI and former president Pervez Musharraf, for illegally allowing the intelligence agencies to use draconian methods to suppress others for personal gains.

Mr Iqbal pleaded that initially he was kept in Muzaffarabad Fort in solitary confinement for about two years and he was subjected to inhuman and brutal torture and coerced to confess the crimes which he had never committed. And finally he was taken to a torture cell in Rawalpindi within the vicinity of GHQ.

“The petitioner was totally crippled and became disabled and instead of any treatment he was thrown in a black hole type dungeon to die without any treatment and care,” the application claimed.

Mr Iqbal pleaded that he was entitled to get his full pay along with allowances during the trial and medical attention, but due to authoritative role of secret agencies, his unit wrote him off and brigade commander and the general officer commanding never felt that it was their responsibility to look after his wife.

He requested for free medical treatment.

Source: http://beta.dawn.com/news/1017512/re-evaluation-of-secret-agencies-role-sought