The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on Monday told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that the agency was not holding four missing activists of the banned Hizbut Tahrir (HT). The single bench of Chief Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman resumed hearing of the case of four identical petitions, seeking recovery of missing HT activists including Imran Yousufzai, Osama Hanif, Dr Abdul Qayyum and Dr Waheed.
On August 12, the chief justice had referred the cases of HT activists to the Inquiry Commission on Enforced Disappearances. On Monday, representing the ISI, Major Shahjan told the court that the ISI had nothing to do with the missing activists of the banned outfit. He also submitted a written statement denying abducting the missing activists.
Alleging that the ISI had abducted the activists, Umar Hayat Sindh, counsel for the missing activists, contended that it was not the first time that government agencies had denied possession of abducted people.
During the course of the hearing, he requested the court to record the statement of Hanan Dawar, who according to him, was recently released by the agencies. To this, the chief justice said the court will look into the matter at the next hearing. After hearing the arguments, the chief justice directed the IHC deputy registrar to submit a detailed report by the next hearing after taking updates from the Commission on Enforced Disappearance. The hearing was then adjourned until October 6.