IHC demands return of 55 students

Warns that PM Kakar will have to appear in court on 29th if missing students are not recovered

ISLAMABAD:

The capital’s high court has directed government authorities to recover 55 missing students from Balochistan province within seven days. The court has noted that if the order is not complied with, the caretaker prime minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, will have to appear in the court in person on November 29, along with the caretaker ministers and secretaries for interior and defence.

A single-member bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani,  resumed hearing a petition filed by human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari on Wednesday.

At the outset of the hearing, the additional attorney-general, Munawar Iqbal Duggal, presented a report compiled by a three-member ministerial committee on enforced disappearances in Balochistan. The judge, however, expressed dissatisfaction at the report.

Addressing the state’s law officer, Justice Kayani said today marks the twenty-first hearing of this case but the government has failed to make any progress towards recovery of the students. “The IHC had taken up the matter when Justice Athar Minallah was the chief justice. Justice Minallah had ordered the interior ministry to form a cell on missing persons and also sent the matter to the federal government for its resolution.”

Read IHC seeks report on missing Baloch students from federal govt

The judge noted that it was not a case of a single person but 55 students were missing and that was the reason the matter was referred to the prime minister, “who should have felt his obligation.

"The prime minister [Kakar] and the interior minister [Sarfraz Bugti] hail from Balochistan. They should have felt that this issue concerns Baloch students. Should we send this issue to the United Nations? Should we humiliate our own country?" The court said it anticipated that the prime minister would acknowledge that the missing students are our children, but that didn't occur."

"We thought things would change slowly and gradually, and the missing people would eventually return but today, on the twenty-first hearing, we are still standing at the same place." The court noted that if these students have committed any crime, authorities should register cases against them and hold their trial in the court of law.

The judge lamented the state's claim that the missing students have already returned home, despite the state's responsibility to recover them. “This [recovery of missing persons] is the responsibility of the executive but the judiciary is doing it,” he added.

The court later rejected the law officer’s request not to summon the interim prime minister and two of his ministers in the court.

Read SHC orders recovery of missing persons

The judge stated that the government either recover the 55 students’ as per the commission’s recommendation or the premier will appear in the court on November 29, when the court will resume hearing the case.

While hearing a petition filed by a missing journalist from Sindh, IHC former chief justice Athar Minallah had also summoned the then prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, in September 2022.

At the hearing, Justice Minallah had remarked that it is the state’s responsibility to remove sufferings of families whose members have gone missing. Former prime minister Shehbaz had assured the court that he would make an all-out effort to resolve the issue.