Missing persons: Court orders investigation team to widen scope

PHC says FIRs should be registered for all bodies found in gunny bags.

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has directed a team inquiring into the recurrence of bodies being found in gunny bags to widen the scope of their investigation.

During the hearing on Tuesday, the court directed all police stations to register FIRs of the bodies recovered within their jurisdiction and asked investigation teams to obtain the FIRs.

A PHC division bench comprising PHC Chief Justice (CJ) Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth issued the orders while hearing a suo motu notice taken after the Human Rights Directorate of the PHC said that bodies, mostly of missing persons, were being found on the outskirts of the city in gunny bags.

The bench was informed by police officials of the crime investigation wing that legal heirs of the deceased in these cases were reluctant to share information with the investigation team.

“Of course these are challenging cases; the task of the investigation team is to probe further into these,” CJ Khan said.

A legal heir of a deceased person, whose body was recovered from Sehra Gali in Mansehra, told the court that the area where the body of his brother was recovered from was only accessible to the police. No civilian can go there, he said.

“They should have at least informed us if our brother had indulged in anti-state activities,” he said.

The bench later ordered all the police stations in whose jurisdictions the bodies had been recovered, to register criminal cases of murder. The bench asked the investigation team to collect the FIRs and then form a joint investigation file.

Earlier on August 16, the court had served notices to the prime minister, chief minister and governor Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) seeking replies as to why people behind the murders were not being brought to justice.

On September 27, the court ordered the creation of a joint investigation team to probe the issue but in the next case hearing on November 6, K-P police asked for more time to investigate the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2012.