HYDERABAD: An elderly widow speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Saturday claimed that her hve sons and seven other relatives had been picked up by police a fortnight back but their whereabouts were not being disclosed nor were they being declared arrested.

Yasmeen Siddique a resident of Mirpurkhas urged the authorities to ensure their recovery.

She said one of her sons, Mohammad Imran, an employee of the police department, was picke d up on March 19 in what she later came to know in connection with an inquiry into corruption at the Mirpurkhas SSP office. Sheapprehended that he might have been arrested but police were neither disclosing facts nor were they producing him in a court of law.

A day later, she said, her other sons Rehan, Faizan, Azhar and Farhan were taken away by police from her house to some undisclosed location. Then Imran`s fatherin-law Yousuf aka Fauji and brothers-in-law Kamran, Imran and Asif were also picked-up in Mirpurlchas, she said. Later, she added, her daughter Sanobar`s husband, Paras Rahman, was picked up by police in Ayub Goth, Karachi. Sanobar, who was present at the press conference, said her husband was picked up on March 21 by police who, she alleged, also took away a motorcycle, mobile phones and gold jewel1ery with them.Ms Siddique, reading from a written text, said that Zafar Iqbal and Javed, also her sons-in-law, were picked up by the Karachi police from the Korangi area.

Shesaidthatnocaseagainst any of her detained family members and relatives had been registered till date nor had their whereabouts been disclosed. She insisted that if they had been detained in any case, they must have been shown arrested and produced in a court of law. She urged the higher authorities to take notice of the high-handedness of the Mirpurkhas SSP and other police personnel and appealed to the judiciary to ensure justice to the aggrieved families.

In reply to a question, she denied that the families were associated with any political or religious party.