IG directed to personally look into missing persons’ cases

Court irked by police’s failure to recover over 100 missing persons

KARACHI: Expressing its dismay over the police’s failure in making a breakthrough in as many 100 cases of citizens’ disappearances, the Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered on Thursday the police inspector-general to personally look into efforts for their recovery and submit a progress report within one month.

Headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, a two-judge bench passed these directives while hearing a number of petitions filed by relatives of the alleged missing persons, seeking direction for the police, Rangers and others authorities to recover them.

The bench members expressed their dismay over the failure of the police to recover more than 100 alleged missing persons despite the lapse of a considerable period of time and issuance of repeated directives and orders by the court.

Justice Phulpoto observed that Additional IG Sanaullah Abbasi, who was previously tasked with investigating the disappearance of the citizens, had also disappointed the court by not making any breakthrough in the cases.



The judges remarked that the reports submitted by police officers are merely an eyewash and waste of the court’s time. They noted that the police officers seemed least interested in the investigation.

The judges observed that it was unfortunate that none of the departments concerned was ready to understand the issue of disappearances of the citizens. “There are persons who are missing for the last many years, but nobody cares,” noted the visibly irked bench members.

Justice Phulpoto remarked that the court was left with no other option but to order the registration of a case against the SHO of the concerned police station from where a citizen would go missing in the future.

The bench ordered the Sindh IG to look into the missing persons’ cases, including the disappearance of Advocate Abdul Sattar’s son, Noor Mohammed, and his driver, Abdul Qadeer.

Noor Mohammad was alleged taken away by unidentified men who had intercepted him outside city courts in April 2012. The lawyer said ever since his son’s whereabouts were unknown while the police and other officials of law enforcement agencies had been approached for the recovery of Noor Mohammed. But, all of them had denied having detained or arrested the man.



SSP Fizullah, who was appearing in another missing person’s case, said the petitioner had himself admitted that the alleged missing person was detained in an army internment centre in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The judges directed the home and police authorities to seek a report of the citizens, who were said to have been detained at the internment centre in K-P and present them in court.