The Parliament’s National Security Committee on Saturday finalised recommendations regarding forced disappearances and amending the Anti-terrorism Act, a source told Pakistan Today.
The members of the Parliament’s National Security Committee (PNSC) met under Chairman Raza Rabbani during an in-camera session to review the finalisation of its recommendations on missing persons as well as amending the ATA to discourage incidents of forced disappearances.
Source said the committee finalised around a dozen recommendations, which urged the law-enforcement agencies to present any suspect, abducted, before a magistrate within 48 hours of one’s detentions/arrest/or abduction.
It was made mandatory in the PNSC recommendations that the blood relations or relatives of the person arrested or detained would be informed, after his abduction and a visit from his relatives would be permitted during detention of accused.
The draft of the committee was finalised with consensus of a majority of the members and it recommends providing the suspect an access to counsel.
Moreover, the measures propose that the local police station should be notified at the time of a suspect’s arrest and that a challan be presented within 21 days after completing the probe.
The committee also recommended that security and law- enforcement agencies should inform the SHO concerned while abducting/detaining any accused and an FIR should be launched against the accused within 24 hours. Similarly, the suspect would be kept under custody for the maximum of three months, recommends the draft.
Later, talking to reporters, Rabbani confirmed that these recommendations have been finalised.
He, however, said that due to the absence of Aftab Khan Sherpao and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaders from the session, the recommendations would be forwarded to the National Assembly for approval, after consultations with them, he said.
The Supreme Court is already investigating cases of missing persons in Balochistan.
Recently, a UN working group also visited Pakistan to probe the complaints of forced disappearances with special focus on Balochistan.
The parliamentary committee, a 13-member body representing almost all parties in the National Assembly, was asked by the government to recommend measures to deal with the problem of missing people or forced disappearances, especially those belonging to Balochistan.