The Supreme Court on Thursday sought a report from the defence and interior ministries before May 1st in a missing person’s case pending before it for two years.
A five-member larger bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali expressed regret said a about basic rights of a citizen could not be taken up earlier. He said that the court was now interested in knowing how many people have gone missing, who picked them up, where they are being kept, are they even alive or have been killed in encounters.
Deputy Attorney General Sajid Bhatti informed the apex court that 185 people were picked up by security agencies and they have not been recovered so far despite giving their CNIC numbers. The chief justice asked what is the mechanism to recover those missing persons.
Lawyer Asma Jehangir said some people are in the investigation centres and they can be recovered. “Some were picked up by Baloch Regiment while some by Frontier Corps (FC),” she said.
Commenting on the commission report about recovery of missing persons, the chief justice asked the Deputy Attorney General that this report should be submitted before the hearing and dispatched to all parties so they could file their replies.
Asma Jehangir said she appeared before the commission, adding that parents of missing persons could not speak in presence of people from secret agencies.
Justice Saqib Nisar remarked that this is a sensitive issue as it deals with the basic rights of citizens. He said that the applicants say security agencies picked those missing persons but the agencies deny these claims.
He said a senior judge of the apex court is heading a commission for recovering missing persons and presence of security agencies officials in the commission’s meeting is to get information.
Asma Jehangir said the commission has no power as they appeared several times before the commission but it fails to deliver. Justice Saqib Nisar said the commission can only ask security agencies based on assumptions and it cannot do anything if the agencies respond in negative.
