A division bench of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Malik Manzoor Hussain issued the directives on Tuesday while hearing 18 petitions of enforced disappearances.
Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Manzoor Khalil, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Waqar Ahmad Khan and Major Muhammad Ali of the Ministry of Defence appeared in court on behalf of the government.
Khanzada Khan, the counsel for petitioner Ulfatnuma Bibi, informed the court that his client’s son, Nameeul Haq, an electrician, was picked up from Ghareeb Market in Katlang, Mardan on March 30, 2013 and his whereabouts are not known since then.
In response, DAG Khalil produced a report on behalf of the Ministry of Defence which stated that Haq was not in their custody. The court then sought a response from intelligence agencies and other security departments.
In another petition, the court was informed that Zahid was picked in 2012 during a search operation in Gadoon, Swabi and had initially been kept in an internment centre in Malakand, but was later shifted to Kohat.
The petitioner said that Zahid’s family had been allowed to meet him while he was detained in Malakand but after he was shifted to Kohat, the family was not allowed to do so because the administration of the Kohat centre demanded separate court orders for each meeting.
AAG Waqar Khan confirmed that the detainee had been shifted to an internment centre in Kohat, saying the practice is frequently conducted due to security reasons.
“There is a law in place and all officials have to abide by it,” said Chief Justice Miankhel. He instructed the petitioners to approach the court if internment centre officials do not allow them to meet their relatives even after the relevant request has been filed.
During the hearing, the court questioned whether relatives of the missing persons and lawyers of the petitioners had checked the two reports available on PHC’s website to know where their family members are being held. Many of them were not aware of the online list, thus the court issued an order to AAG Waqar Khan to check internment centres’ records for new detainees.
The K-P Home and Tribal Affairs department has submitted two reports to the court during the hearing of missing persons. The first report submitted on May 29 states that there are 593 people detained in five internment centres of K-P and 60 detained in the jurisdiction of various political administrations.
The second report submitted on June 26 states 130 other suspects are detained in internment centres while 10 have been handed over to the political administration and the police who have released them.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 3rd, 2014.
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