After locating his missing uncle, petitioner turns to court for help

SHC sends case to the Federal Review Board, Supreme Court.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court directed the federal law officer on Tuesday to take up the matter of missing persons, who have been detained by the armed forces, to resolve the issue as their families continue to undergo mental torture and agony.

Chief Justice Mushir Alam, while heading the bench, ordered that the copy of the order may also be sent to the Supreme Court of Pakistan for its consideration of such cases where information about the missing persons is not disclosed by armed forces and their families continue to suffer.

Hakimullah Khan had gone to the court against the law enforcement and intelligence agencies for allegedly unlawfully detaining his uncle, Muhammad Zaman alias Mazoo Khan, since December 2010.



He alleged that Muhammad Zaman, a taxi driver, was whisked away by people in police uniform and civilian clothes from his house within the limits of Orangi police station on December 15. Since then, there has been no information about his location. But recently, the petitioner came to know that he was being detained by the army in Wana, Waziristan.

On Tuesday, the investigation officer Sikandar Zulqarnain submitted a detailed report, saying efforts were being made to collect information from the civil and military authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. No information, however, has been shared even though petitioner visited the place and learnt that Zaman was in an interminent centre in Waziristan. The officer added that they even wrote letters to the Commander of 11th Corps Peshawar and other law enforcing agencies, but there was no response.

Court’s observation

The judges noted that in many cases, the complainant said that according to their personal and credible information, the missing persons were being kept by the armed forces in interminent centres situated beyond territorial limits of this court.



Taking serious notice of the non-cooperation on the part of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in this particular case, the judges ordered that the matter relating to such persons should be brought to the notice of the Federal Review Board. The board should then consider how the missing persons are kept by armed forces and law enforcing agencies without divulging information to the provincial and local authority and without producing them before any other authority.

The judges also directed that a copy of this order should be sent to the SC Registrar to bring the matter to the notice of the apex court as well.

Moreover, the bench directed the deputy attorney general Muhammad Ashraf Mughal to call information about Muhammad Zaman from the concerned authorities and also send copy of this order to the secretaries of interior and defense ministries.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2013.