ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered all provincial inspectors general of police to submit a comprehensive report on progress made so far in recovering the missing persons within a fortnight.
A three-member bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali was hearing a suo motu case coupled with various pleas for the recovery of hundreds of missing persons, allegedly abducted by intelligence agencies.
Appearing on notice, Additional Attorney General KK Agha told the court that the government had formed a commission comprising Justice (r) Fazl-ur-Rehman and an police IG to assist in the investigations of the missing persons’ case.
Agha said in a report that 65 people had gone missing in the last year and seven of the missing people from Balochistan and four from Sindh had been found. Justice Javed Iqbal asked Agha to take up the matter of missing persons with the government and parliament to come up with specific laws to resolve the issue of missing people.
He said it was never the objective of the Supreme Court to interfere in executive affairs, however, the number of missing persons was rising day by day and their dead bodies were being found, so to ensure protection of citizens’ rights and national sovereignty, the court had to intercede.
The court told the IGs of all provinces to accelerate their efforts for the recovery of missing people. Defence of Human Rights (DHR) Chairwoman Amna Masood Janjua, whose husband Masood Janjua is also missing, provided a list of 38 new cases of missing persons to the court, and the court told her to give the list to the Commission’s secretary.
The court told the Sindh police chief to probe the matter of 28 missing persons from the MQM in Sindh, especially Karachi, within two weeks. To a court query, Agha said that the government had ordered intelligence agencies not to pick up anyone in future.
Agha said that the Inter-Services Intelligence had no power to arrest anyone, however the Military Intelligence could arrest a person under the Army Act and the arrested person could be detained for 60 days.
The Balochistan additional advocate general failed to reply to Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed’s inquiry about the seven bullet-riddled bodies found in Balochistan, or whether the police had investigated who had killed them and what was found in the post-mortem reports.
Justice Javed Iqbal also stated that the Supreme Court would conduct a hearing with reference to Lal Masjid incident starting next week, Online news service reported. Later the court adjourned till the next hearing in two weeks.
LARGER BENCH: Meanwhile, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Tuesday formed a larger bench to hear the government’s request seeking review of the SC’s verdict overturning a Parliamentary Committee decision to deny yearlong extensions to six additional judges of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Sindh High Court (LHC).
Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui, Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez comprised the four-member larger bench that will hear the review petition on April 1.
