Supreme Court accuses FC over missing people

Chief justice says enough evidences are available for FC's involvement in picking up of every third missing person.

QUETTA: The Supreme Court on Wednesday accused the paramilitary Frontier Corps of involvement in the disappearance of a third of all the missing persons in Balochistan.

The apex court is investigating cases of missing people in Balochistan, where the military has been accused of rights violations in its bid to put down a separatist insurgency.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, sitting in the provincial capital Quetta, ordered Frontier Corps (FC) officials to produce missing persons before the court.

"Enough evidences are available for involvement of the Frontier Corps in picking up of every third missing person" in Balochistan, he said.

The chief justice and two other judges also heard a case involving the alleged abduction of 30 people and killing of two tribesmen in the Totak Khuzdar district of Balochistan in February last year.

The court ordered FC officials to produce people from the Totak incident which it had in custody.

During the hearing of the case on Tuesday, the FC continued to come under the fire of the court, with the chief justice restating that every third person who was missing was picked up by the FC.

He had asked the counsel of the FC why no action had been taken in refugee camps, where several missing persons are reported to be present. He had posed the same question to Balochistan Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob.