Enforced disappearances: Security agencies’ replies dubbed unsatisfactory

PHC adjourns cases till November 29, asks respondents to submit ‘better replies’.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday termed the replies by security agencies on missing persons cases as unsatisfactory.

A PHC division bench comprising Justice Miftahuddin Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth asked spy agencies, the federal and provincial governments and security forces conducting operations against militants to submit “better replies” against the allegations levelled against them by relatives of missing persons. The bench was hearing 55 habeas corpus petitions in which the petitioners accused the security agencies of abducting their relatives and keeping them in illegal detention.

Case one

On a petition filed by Abid Ghani, an Afghan national who accused the former Sarband Police Station House Officer (SHO) Abidur Rehman of abducting his brother Shafiullah, the accused police official denied the charges and claimed that he did not pick up the petitioner’s brother.

However, Ghani maintained that Rehman picked up his brother, along with another man named Younas, from Batatal checkpoint at Karkhano Market on February 25, 2011. He said that Younas was later released after elders of the area intervened and paid Rs20,000 to the SHO. He added that his brother is still missing because he could not pay ransom for his release.

Case two

The bench took up a petition filed by relatives of three residents of Odigram, Swat who went missing from a camp for internally-displaced people in Chamkani.

The family members maintained that Iqbal Hussain, Naseer and Shah Zareen went missing from the camp on June 6, 2010 and have yet to be traced. They said a case was also registered in this regard with the Chamkani Police Station. Police officials informed the bench that a First Information Report on the missing persons was registered on June 9, 2010.

The officials said that investigation into the case are underway but no progress has been made so far. The bench adjourned all the cases till November 29 and directed the respondents to file better replies.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2012.