Karachi: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has summoned the Paramilitary Rangers chief on a petition filed by the wife of Lyari gang leader Uzair Baloch, who has been in Rangers custody for three months.

Samina Uzair, Baloch’s wife, filed the petition in the SHC on Monday after an anti-terrorism court (ATC) turned down a request to allow her and a lawyer to see Baloch.

Justice Ahmad Ali Shaikh of the SHC has issued notice to the Rangers chief to appear in court on February 22 to explain his position on the issue.

Baloch a notorious gang leader from Lyari, a hotbed of drug peddlers and outlaws, was formally arrested on January 31. Authorities said he was arrested while trying to enter Karachi from the western outskirts of the city.

Nevertheless, speculation is rife that he was repatriated from a Gulf country several months ago where, he was arrested last year while trying to move from one state to another.

After his repatriation to Pakistan, it is said, he was kept at an undisclosed location.

Early this month, the ATC remanded him to the Rangers custody for 90 days, as authorities investgated as many as 50 charges against Baloch, including multiple murders, extortion and kidnapping for ransom.

A join investigation team (JIT) has been set up to probe the gang leader, who was said to be connected to several ministers and leaders of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) while he was reigning Lyari.

Reports, leaked to the local media, suggest he had a lot of information to disclose to the investigators ranging from slain leader Benazir Bhutto’s murder in 2007 to billions of rupees fund transfers to the political leadership.

Meanwhile, the name Sharjeel Inam Memon, a former minister of the PPP, who was living in self-exile for about half a year in a Gulf state, was placed on the exit control list (ECL) in Pakistan. The list restricts a person travel to foreign countries.

Memon has filed a petition in the SHC seeking the court intervention to strike off his name from the list. In his petition he told the court that he was not aware of any corruption charges against him and he came to know about the false corruption cases, against him only though the media.

He had to flee from the country after an extensive operation was launched by the Rangers to curb the cases of land grabbing, money laundering and other corruption charges against the ministers and the bureaucrats.

The Rangers raids created a tiff between the PPP and the security establishment.