Missing software engineer: IHC directs interior ministry to submit report within a week

Interior secretary told to identify those responsible for failing to trace the man

ISLAMABAD: While putting the Advocate General on notice, the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday directed the secretary ministry of interior to submit a report on the alleged ‘enforced disappearance’ of a software engineer within a week.

In the order, Justice Athar Minallah noted that the respondents, excluding the Directorate of Military Intelligence which has yet to complete its ground check, had stated that the missing man was not in their custody and did not know of his whereabouts.

Sajid Mehmood, a software engineer, has been missing for the past six months. His wife Mahera, also a software engineer, filed a petition in the IHC through her counsel Umer Gilani in which she alleged that her husband was “abducted from their home in F-10/1 amidst circumstance which strongly suggests that this is a case of enforced disappearance.”

In the petition Mahera states that on the evening of March 14, around eight men arrived in a Land Cruiser and two double cabin car and barged into their home on Street 29, F-10/1. After searching the house for 20 minutes they took away Sajid along with some of the family’s computers, academic certificates, property records, keys and car documents.

Some of the men who had barged in were wearing black police uniforms with the insignia ‘No Fear’ inscribed on it, while others were wearing plain clothes, the petition further adds. He said that the missing engineer’s wife had decided to file a habeas corpus petition before the ICH after waiting for four and a half months hoping that the police, agencies or the Missing Persons Commission would provide some relief.

The secretaries of Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, Inspector General of Police, DG Intelligence Bureau, Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate, Military Intelligence and the SHO Shalimar Police Station have been named as respondents in the case.

While directing the secretary of the interior ministry to submit a report within one week, the court on Wednesday said that the report shall also identify those responsible who failed to protect the allegedly abducted person and trace his whereabouts.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2016.