Masood Janjua’s case sent to judicial commission

SC asks for record of missing persons’ cases to determine which ones to focus on.


Express October 13, 2011

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the attorney general to submit a detailed record of missing persons’ cases to enable the court to decide which ones to refer to the judicial commission.

A bench of the apex court headed by Justice Shakirullah Jan sent Masood Janjua’s case to the commission. During the hearing, Janjua’s wife, Defence of Human Rights Chairperson Amina Janjua, alleged that her husband was being held by intelligence agencies. She claimed that Imran Munir, who had also been detained by security agencies, had twice confirmed meeting her husband while in custody.

Justice Shakirullah observed that the judicial commission was in a better position to determine conflicting claims regarding Janjua’s captivity.

Additional Attorney General KK Agha refuted Amina’s claim that Munir had seen Janjua in Brig. Masood Sheikh’s custody.  He said the former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence had stated before the judicial commission that Janjua and Faisal Faraz were not militants, but al Qaeda sympathisers. They had taken a laptop for al Misri which contained a tracking chip. Consequently, both were killed by al Qaeda. Agha said Amina could register an FIR to ferret out the truth. He said Munir was prosecuted under the Army Act for being an Indian spy.

“A committee has been formed to pay compensation to missing persons’ families in line with the apex court’s directives,” he informed the court. The bench had referred 252 cases to the commission for missing persons and had directed the government to ensure that compensation was paid to their heirs within a week, on an earlier hearing. Agha had been directed to inform the court in case problems arose in the payment .

Superintendent Police Peshawar, Muhammad Umer submitted an investigation report on missing persons which was turned down by the court. The bench observed that the police had failed to trace missing persons. Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali remarked that during the past 20 months, Peshawar police had just traced Abdur Rehman. “The police may be helpless but the court certainly isn’t,” he declared.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13th, 2011.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ