The Supreme Court on Wednesday said governments came and went, but “we have to save the country and if the prime minister does not perform his duties, the constitution will work and emergency can be enforced in the case pertaining to law and order in Balochistan and the missing persons’ issue across the province”.
A three-member Supreme Court (SC) bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was hearing the proceedings of the Baloch missing persons’ case at Supreme Court’s Quetta Registry.
Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi, Principal Secretary to the PM Khushnood Lashari and other high ranking officials appeared before the court on Wednesday.
During the proceedings, the CJP told Lashari that the Balochistan situation was very serious but nothing was being done according to the constitution and people were pointing fingers at law enforcement agencies like the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Frontier Corps (FC) for abduction of people and extra judicial killings.
He added that the province was experiencing the menace of targeted killing due to religious ethnicity, scholars were being killed, development was equal to zero while a provincial minister had claimed that provincial ministers were involved in Balochistan unrest. The CJ expressed annoyance over the lack of interest of rulers regarding Balochistan and said if the government did not work, the courts would still continue performing their duties.
He added that the rulers were resting in Islamabad, while various areas of the province had become no go areas. Besides, the “deputy attorney general is not ready to write a single line to the federal government over the situation”.
The chief justice questioned why the provincial interior minister had not come to court despite being summoned.
The provincial interior secretary replied that he had tried to contact the minister throughout the night, but could not get through to him.
The CJ then said there were serious allegations against the provincial interior minister regarding missing persons’ case.
The interior secretary told the SC that the provincial interior minister had been informed about the allegations, to which the CJ ordered the provincial interior minister be brought to Islamabad after registering a case against him.
The principal secretary to the PM told the SC that the government had started “Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan” package, to which the chief justice said “go and witness the situation of the province”. He said a torched house was repaired once the fire had been put out. “The Deputy Attorney General is showing unserious behavior on part of the federal government by resigning and on the other hand, national anthem is not allowed to be played in various areas of Balochistan,” he added.
Justice Khilji Arif Hussain told the advocate general, “How can we resolve the issue of Balochistan as it is a burning issue of the country, people are pointing their fingers towards the institutions which are sacrificing on the other fronts.”
He said they were contributing their due share to put out the fire that was burning Balochistan.
‘Balochistan situation warrants emergency’
