Judicial body concludes hearing of 34 cases

QUETTA: A judicial commission on Saturday wrapped up a three-day hearing session during which it took up as many 34 cases.

The commission, comprising Justice (retd) Kamal Mansoor Siddiqi, Justice (retd) Fazlur Rehman and Justice (retd) Nasira Javed Iqbal, heard nine cases on Saturday during which officials of the home department, security agencies and police submitted their reports. In-charge Crisis Management Cell Islamabad Sher Baz Khan said that around 31 people have been traced from Quetta of which 22 were traced after the commission was formed.

Referring to the boycott by the Voice for Missing Persons from the commission’s proceedings, Khan said that the hearings were not administrative meetings that required invitations to be sent to political parties or other organisations. According to him, only the relatives of the missing persons were invited to the hearings.

The advocacy group Voice for Missing Persons boycotted the proceedings because the commission did not incorporate a list of missing persons prepared by the organisation during its investigation. Also, the head of the group claimed that the judicial commission was formed only to endorse the opinion and actions of the security agencies and to mislead the public opinion.

Relatives of missing persons, who are on hunger strike for the past two months, also have expressed lack of trust in the commission.

“When I appeared before the commission, one of the judges asked me where I had got the classic Baloch embroidery on my shirt made,” the sister of missing person Wadood Raisani told The Express Tribune. She said the commission is not serious and thus
relatives of some other missing persons have also boycotted its hearings. Its next hearing will be held in Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2010