Expressing his resentment over police’s failure to recover the missing persons, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Thursday warned that if the seven people abducted from the provincial capital were not produced before the court on Friday, all police officers concerned, including the inspector general (IG) of Balochistan Police would be suspended.
A three-member SC bench, including Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Pervez, was hearing a case on deteriorating law and order situation in Balochistan. A group of women told the court that a team of Frontier Corps personnel and intelligence agencies had raided their house in Sariab area on March 1, and abducted ten people. They said that three of the abducted people were later released, while seven were still missing.
Balochistan Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad, Police IG Rao Amin Hashim, Home Secretary Naseebullah Bazai, Balochistan Advocate General Amanullah Kanrani and High Court Bar Association President Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani were present in the court. During the hearing, Bazai informed that 139 dead bodies had so far been recovered from various parts of Balochistan.
Expressing his anger, the CJP said the police had neither investigated the cases of recovered dead bodies nor arrested anyone. He said that police officials were not serious in investigating the cases of recovered dead bodies, while the issue was going out of proportion. The court ordered the police to thoroughly investigate each dead body found in the province and submit challans in the court within the stipulated period. It also directed the Balochistan Police IG to take action against the ministers involved in kidnappings for ransom.
“It has also been accused that some people of law enforcement agencies were involved in such incidents,” Chaudhry said. The statement made by provincial minister Mir Sadiq Umrani on the floor of assembly was also read out in the court. The minister had claimed that he was going to Quetta from Kalat along with some other ministers when they witnessed a team of Frontier Corps personnel lining up two Baloch youth on the main national highway and shooting them dead. The minister also claimed that the next morning, the dead bodies of the two boys were found in the same area. While addressing the Home secretary, the chief justice remarked, “Like me, you are also a son of the soil; don’t such incidents hurt you?”
The chief justice also expressed his resentment over the absence of the attorney general after learning that he had gone to attend the memo commission. The CJP asked if the memo commission was above the Supreme Court. He also ordered the AG to appear before the bench on Friday. He said that as Frontier Corps was also being accused in the recovery of dead bodies therefore the FC inspector general should also provide explanation in this regard. The CJP asked how many families had been given compensation after the recovery of the dead bodies of their relatives. The Home secretary submitted that that no such policy existed, to which the CJP remarked that the relatives of the missing persons should be given compensation.
