Missing persons badly reflect on state: IHC

Judge questions govt's foreign investment strategy

ISLAMABAD:

Islamabad High Court's (IHC) Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb on Thursday questioned how the government could attract foreign investment when courts were unable to enforce their decisions with regard to missing persons.

The judge issued the remarks while hearing the case of recovery of missing PTI worker Malik Faizan.

Two days ago, the IHC had also summoned the interior and defence secretaries, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general, and the Islamabad inspector general of police (IG) on a petition seeking the recovery of PTI activist Azhar Mishwani's two brothers.

Zahoor and Mazhar were allegedly picked up by law enforcement agencies in June, with Lahore High Court's (LHC) Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi ordering the Punjab IG to recover the two brothers.

The PTI has also launched a campaign on social media for the recovery of "abducted" workers and activists, including the party's international media coordinator Ahmad Waqas Janjua. The campaign aims to draw the attention of the courts to the disappearances.

Hearing the petition for Faizan's recovery, Justice Aurangzeb said, "The world is also watching what Pakistani courts are doing in cases of missing persons," and added "Or either admit that the world come and invests here but people will still go missing and the courts will not be able to do anything."

He continued: "If the government calls it a case of enforced disappearance, then they need to find out who ordered it. The government then needs to sit down with the abductors."

When the judge asked who the missing workers were, the petitioner's lawyer mentioned Faizan, who works for the PTI's media cell.

Addressing the additional attorney general, Justice Aurangzeb - in a harsh tone - suggested that he "change the Constitution, remove fundamental rights from it, end our (the court's) jurisdiction".

"I don't know what the state wants to achieve with this. You arrest him (Faizan) and we won't say anything, but the country cannot run like this," the judge said.

"The Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, and the state are all content with this, but I don't understand what is going on. What do you aim to achieve with this?" the judge asked. He also remarked that earlier, the bench which heard the case, wrote that it was a matter of enforced disappearance.

Calling it a "cruel act", he wondered what the constitutional courts should do in such a situation.

"The federal government means the prime minister and the federal cabinet, so the responsibility ultimately rests with the executive," Justice Aurangzeb remarked.

The additional attorney general said that the petitioners "did not knock on the door of the court with clean hands".

In response, Justice Aurangzeb remarked: "Should the petition be dismissed if they did not file the petition with clean hands?"

"Do you want me to become a servile judge?" he asked. "Should I reject 'dirty' applications from 'dirty' applicants? I don't understand where you are going with this," Aurangzeb said, asking the prosecutor, "Tell me, what I should do?"

The AAG replied: "We do not know who the kidnappers are." Justice Aurangzeb further remarked, "When one of our fellow judges issued a strict order, the government propaganda machines started propaganda against him."