QUETTA: President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Qazi Muhammad Anwar has called upon the government to trace all missing persons who were allegedly picked up by intelligence agencies.
Anwar made the demand while speaking to journalists on the fringes of a workshop organised by the Balochistan Institute for Development at the Quetta press club on Saturday. He said it was a sensitive issue because it allegedly involved the ISI and the MI. Therefore, it would take time, he added.
“It is a wrong impression that the chief justice of Pakistan is not interested in this humanitarian issue because he was sacked while hearing cases of missing persons. And now the case is being heard by Supreme Court judge Javed Iqbal, who also belongs to Balochistan,” he said.
The SCBA chief said the number of missing persons in Balochistan is more than 4, 000 which is higher than other provinces.
“I appeal to the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of these missing persons, whether they are dead or languishing in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre,” he said.
Anwer also spoke about the ongoing confrontation between the executive and the judiciary. “(Law Minister) Babar Awan is trying to weaken the lawyers’ community by spending huge sums of money among them. But he will never succeed in dividing lawyers,” the SCBA chief said. He said that lawyers would resist any government decisions in conflict with the constitution and law of the land.
Anwer said that he came to Quetta to offer Fateha for the late lawyer Habib Jalib Baloch and to sympathise with the families of lawyer Munir Ahmed Mirwani, who, he alleged, “was picked up by secret agencies from Khuzdar last month.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 25th, 2010.
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