Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan on Tuesday directed high ranking civil, military and police authorities to arrange early meetings in order to decide the fate of missing persons allegedly sentenced without trial, besides ending mysterious abductions and subsequent recovery of mutilated dead bodies.
He issued these identical remarks in two separate suo motu notices.
During a hearing on the issue of the missing persons, the PHC chief justice ordered the Peshawar corps commander, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief secretary, the inspector general of Frontier Corps, and the inspector general of KP Police to arrange an early meeting and ensure the recovery of the missing people. He said the meeting should be attended by the Home and Tribal Affairs secretary, field commanders, unit commanders, and high ups from all security and secret agencies.
The chief justice said the meeting should discuss and finalise a list of the missing persons, besides holding an in depth case-to-case study. He ordered that all innocent persons be released, while the guilty should be tried. He said the court would be justified in ordering strict action against those responsible if its directives were not carried out. The chief justice directed the quarters concerned to submit a report on December 4 – the date of next hearing.
Separately, while hearing the suo motu notice on the recovery of dead bodies, the chief justice remarked that so far the court had received post mortem reports of 26 recovered corpses. As all medical reports were very similar, the chief justice ordered the director general of Health Services to take stern action against the doctors responsible. The chief justice said the doctors should be punished if they were found guilty of hiding facts.
