Court sets eight-day deadline for recovery

The court is not interested in sending police officials to jail, remarks chief justice.


Express November 03, 2010

ISLAMABAD:


The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Punjab chief secretary eight days to recover 11 men who were allegedly picked up by the country’s spy agencies after their acquittal by a court in a terrorism case.

The deadline was set by a three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, while hearing a suo motu case.

Justice Chaudhry remarked that the court was not interested in sending police officials to jail but it was concerned with the recovery of the 11 missing men.

Punjab Chief Secretary Nasir Saeed Khosa informed the court that he has sought a report from Inspector-General Police Punjab Tahir Saleem Dogar about the 11 men who went missing from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail.

“Within the next four days, I will be in a position to inform the court about the exact situation,” Khosa submitted and sought a four-day period from the court for investigations.

Khosa assured the court that the missing people would be recovered soon. He submitted a report of the Special Branch to the bench. And Justice Chaudhry, after reading the report, observed, “According to police officials the 11 men were released, whereas Additional Attorney-General KK Agha misinformed the court that they are not in the custody of the spy agencies.”

“This report is saying something else,” Justice Chaudhry further observed while warning the counsel to avoid making such irresponsible statements in the court.

“Why is an unlawful procedure adopted when the law is available?” Justice Ramday observed.

Later, the chief justice gave the Punjab chief secretary until November 10 to recover the missing men and submit a daily performance report in the court.

On Monday, the apex court had summoned Chief Secretary Khosa seeking information on the whereabouts of the 11 men.

The men were arrested in a number of terrorism cases, including the assassination attempt on the then military ruler Pervez Musharraf. However, an anti-terrorism court acquitted them for want of evidence. The Adiala jail administration, instead of releasing them, had allegedly handed them over to the agencies.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2010.

COMMENTS (3)

Khalida Anjum | 13 years ago | Reply Justice Iftakhar Muhammad Chauhdary now seems to be a different guy. Since his restoration he seems to be highly obliged to the military establishment of Pakistan. He seems to owe his restoration to the “Men in Khaki” rather than the “Men in Black”. He seems to have steeped into an unsaid accord with the GHQ. The “Missing Persons” case is perhaps the most evident outcome of this accord. Since his restoration he has not been able to extract a single person, not even once a military official has been summoned to the court, not even a single notice has been sent to the Judge Advocate General in this regard. In fact he is feeling pride in parading the police officers and is busy in their monitoring. He now wants to know “Who is behind this?” Though having a firm belief in the intellect of our Chief Justice I would like to assist him by refreshing his memory. I would like him to shake his head and have a look a the history of his beloved country, he will definitely come up to a conclusion.
Shahryar Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply Most of these people are involved in anti-state activities; there is no reason for any government to pick up people (its citizens) for no rhyme or reason. Yes, they should be booked & brought to justice, but looking at our judicial system & corruption at judiciary level, there is almost 90% probability that most of these people would have been acquitted. If the government was kidnapping it's citizens like these people claim, then I am sure there are many other people (like you all & myself) that might be more useful (money wise, or more vocal) than these supposedly innocent hard working men, with long beards & with a fundamentalist mindset, looking at their family. These people have most probably ran off to fight the jihad against the infidels in Afghanistan or maybe away from their families, simple as that.
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