E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.2 page 6 II. UNLAWFUL DETENTION 17. Unlawful detention as such is not a matter directly within the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. However, it can provide the environment in which torture can flourish. This is precisely what has been frequently alleged to be the case in Pakistan. 18. Article 10 (1) of the Constitution of Pakistan states, "No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest, nor shall he be denied the right to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice". Article 10 (2) states, "Every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before a magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest". Similarly, section 61 of the Criminal Procedure Code provides that "no police officer shall detain in custody a person arrested without warrant for a longer period than under all the circumstances of the case is reasonable, and such period shall not, in the absence of a special order of a Magistrate under section 167, exceed twenty-four hours exclusive of the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the Magistrate’s Court". Section 167 does allow the police to detain in custody a person arrested without warrant for a term not exceeding 15 days "where the investigation cannot be completed within the period of twenty-four hours fixed by section 61, and there are grounds for believing that the accusation or information is well-founded". However, the officer-in-charge of the police station or the police officer making the investigation must still transmit to the nearest Judicial Magistrate a copy of the entries in the diary relating to the case, and shall at the same time forward the accused to such Magistrate. Further, the law permits a deputy commissioner of a local district to order detention without charge for 30 days of persons suspected of threatening public order and safety. The deputy commissioner may renew detention in 30-day periods, for a total of 90 days. 19. In practice, the authorities do not strictly observe these limits on detention. The Special Rapporteur was informed that the police often hold detainees without charge until they are challenged by a court. It is also alleged that the police sometimes detain individuals arbitrarily without charge, or on false charges, in order to extort payment for their release. These allegations were corroborated by prisoners with whom the Special Rapporteur spoke in the Central Jails of Karachi and Lahore. Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are also facilitated by the widespread practice of holding prisoners in incommunicado detention, sometimes in premises not designated for the purpose. In such undeclared places of detention, law enforcement personnel are able to commit human rights violations with impunity since legal safeguards against ill-treatment cannot be enforced and detection is unlikely. 20. During his mission, the Special Rapporteur received numerous reports on the use of unauthorized detention centres by the various branches of government that deal with law and order, including the police, army and intelligence agencies. In one case, the Special Rapporteur received testimony from an individual who alleged that he had been held without charge in incommunicado detention for several months in a "safe house" on the outskirts