Enforced disappearances: Eight more ‘missing’ people shifted to internment centres

Court grants yet more time to govt for federal task force report on the matter.

PESHAWAR:

Eight more missing people have been traced and shifted to various notified internment centres in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) was told on Tuesday.

A progress report was produced before the division bench of Chief Justice (CJ) Mian Fasihul Mulk and Justice Ikramullah Khan in Tuesday’s hearing of 109 petitions of enforced disappearances in K-P and the tribal areas.



Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Farooq Shah presented the report. He explained eight people, previously considered missing, had been shifted to internment centres, while the search for hundreds of others is under way.

The missing report

The two-member bench expressed displeasure over the officials’ slow progress in presenting a comprehensive report by the Federal Task Force on Missing Persons. During the last hearing on January 16, the court had ordered the report be presented in the next hearing.

CJ Fasihul Mulk said such cases are getting delayed on the pretext of presenting the report. “Families should at least be informed about the whereabouts of their missing relatives – whether they are dead or alive,” remarked Justice Mulk.

“There should be a concrete solution to the problem and the issue needs to be taken up with the federal government because hundreds of people are still missing,” said the CJ. “If these people are not with intelligence agencies then where are they?”

The government’s representatives sought more time to prepare the report in question after which the court granted them a month for its completion.

The bench also sought comments from the Fata additional chief secretary (ACS) on the compensation for the murder of two missing persons. Advocate Raizatul Haq told the bench Amjid and Said Khan, relatives of Yousaf Shah, were picked up on December 12, 2012 from Paharipura and their bodies were later found in Khyber Agency.

The advocate said the PHC had earlier ordered the political administration of Khyber Agency to give financial compensation to the families of the deceased but the directives had not been followed.

Iqbal Durrani, the counsel for the political administration, shared the request had been prepared and forwarded to the federal government for approval. The court then sought a report from the Fata ACS.

The case was adjourned till March 18.

On January 16, a division bench was told 21 more missing persons had been identified and shifted to various internment centres in the province. Earlier on December 10, the defence ministry presented a similar report, stating 707 missing people were identified as detainees at internment centres in the region.

Former chief justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Asadullah Khan Chamkani set a four-week deadline to the government to produce a comprehensive report of the whereabouts of all missing persons in the province and tribal areas but the government is yet to prepare it.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2014.