Barely clothed living human skeletons of 'missing' Adiala Jail prisoners' horrified people in Pak S

Islamabad, Feb 15 (ANI): The seven missing prisoners of the Adiala Jail who were produced before the Pakistan Supreme Court were effectively human skeletons, wearing minimum clothes in freezing weather and barely able to walk without support.

As they entered the courtroom, their family members watched them with shock and tears, The News reports.

Their plight, with one prisoner limping and another carrying a urine bag, even moved Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was heading a three-member bench looking into the case.

"Look at them. They don't have warm clothing; no jackets even. I feel ashamed to see a detainee with a urine bag at this young age. Humanity means something," Chief Justice Chaudhry added.

The prisoners went missing from Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail in 2010, and four out of seven detainees have already died while in the custody of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

"We will also question the circumstances surrounding their death," Chief Justice Chaudhry told the ISI-MI lawyer and the chief secretary. The agency and army were directed to produce the entire record from the day they were detained.

Meanwhile, the father of one of the prisoners has said that they have now been placed in custody of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and not of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Lawyers for Pakistan's ISI and MI intelligence services told a court the men were being held by the military under the Pakistan Army Act for having a role in attacks on military targets in the Rawalpindi area. They are among 11 men who were picked up by men in plain clothes from the Adiala Jail in 2010.

The sight of the men were reportedly so pathetic on Monday that Rohaifa, the mother of three detainees of Adiala Jail, who had filed the petition in the Supreme Court regarding the release of prisoners, died of shock a day after seeing her two sons in a miserable condition in the courtroom.

Tariq Asad, the counsel for Rohaifa, confirmed that she died of cardiac arrest on Tuesday after seeing her sons Abdul Majid and Abdul Basit on Monday.

"In case, after probe, it is found that the arrest and proceedings have not been conducted in accordance with law, [the court should] declare that the detainees were in illegal confinement and subjected to torture," the lawyer said. (ANI)