Insufficient progress: SHC expresses dissatisfaction over police reports on missing persons

300 persons are missing but officials fail to give information of the actual situation

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) expressed on Thursday its dissatisfaction over the police's report regarding the recovery of missing persons and summoned the home secretary, officials of the joint investigation team (JIT) and the provincial task force (PTF) to personally appear before it. The court also issued a show-cause notice to the home secretary for not implementing court orders.

A two-member bench of SHC, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulputo, termed the PTF and JIT reports 'unsatisfactory'. Justice Phulputo remarked that the police always submits stereotypical reports. Police officials, in their report, had informed the bench that a missing person, Shoiab Ghuffran, was killed in a police encounter in Dera Ghazi Khan. On which, the bench remarked that PTF in its earlier report had said that they had found a clue found about Ghuffran's whereabouts. It remarked that there were 300 missing persons but PTF and JIT had failed to inform the court regarding the actual situation.

The court also sought travel history from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of all missing citizens. It also remarked that the court had directed JIT and PTF to separately probe the cases.

Ghani, the father of a missing person, stated before the court that his son went missing on November 13, 2016 from the airport. "I received a telephone call from Swat saying that your son is here in Swat," he told the court. He said that he went to Swat twice but neither did he find his son nor his whereabouts.

The brother of another missing person, Zubair, stated before the court that his brother has been missing since 2014. ''Eight JITs were formed but there was no progress report regarding my brother's recovery,'' he said.

The court ordered JIT, PTF and police to submit reports before the court after recovering the missing citizens by February 6. The hearing was adjourned till February 6.

Job in police dept

The SHC on Thursday rejected the requests of candidates seeking employment in Karachi police department. A two-member bench announced the verdict, which had been reserved earlier.

More than a 100 candidates who passed the written examination had filed a petition challenging the grace marks given by Sindh inspector general (IG). Candidates who passed written exams of 2013 and 2014 had filed the petition. They argued that IG has the authority to give grace marks and can award grace marks to candidates with additional abilities. They maintained that the higher authorities of the police department had promised the remaining candidates that they would be employed in the second phase, but the candidates achieving merit could not get employed.

Fake degree

The SHC will hear the plea challenging the fake degree of provincial minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla on December 20.

The plea was filed by a citizen, Abdul Qayyum, who claimed that Chawla's year of birth is 1974 while the person whose degree was submitted before the Election Commission was born in 1980. He claimed that Chawla matriculated from Karachi in 1992 while Mukesh Pansaari matriculated from Sajawal. He also claimed that Chawla has not acquired education from any college or university after matric. Qayyum argued that Mukesh Kumar Chawla was fraudulently using Mukesh Kumar Pansaar's degree from Jamshoro University. According to him, Mukesh Kumar Pansari, who acquired a master's degree from Jamshoro University, is employed at a bank in Karachi. The petitioner argued that Chawla should be declared ineligible.

Death sentence

The SHC directed on Thursday the prosecution lawyer to provide a copy of the verdict to the lawyer of a convict who has challenged the death sentence awarded to him by a military court.

The petition of convict, former lieutenant Hasham Naseer, was heard by a two-member bench.

Advocate Mehmood Qureshi, the petitioner's lawyer, maintained that the copy of the military court's verdict has not been provided to him. The court directed the prosecution lawyer to provide the copy of the verdict to the petitioner's lawyer and adjourned the hearing till January 10.

Naseer was accused of assisting terrorists who attacked a Pakistan Navy ship. The military court had awarded the death sentence to Naseer on this accusation. The petition  also maintained that Naseer's whereabouts are not known for the past 11 months. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2018.