The plight of many: Govt urged to revisit policy on enforced disappearances

CJ wants sentiments of missing persons’ families conveyed to dept seniors.

PESHAWAR:

It is imperative for the government to revisit its policies on enforced disappearances, said Peshawar High Court Chief Justice (CJ) Mazhar Alam Miankhel on Tuesday. He ordered representatives of various ministries to convey sentiments of the families of missing persons to department seniors. 

While hearing 47 petitions related to enforced disappearances, the division bench of the CJ and Justice Ikramullah Khan expressed its displeasure with the government for failing to submit reports of oversight boards of internment centres.

Additional Advocate General (AAG) Waqar Ahmad Khan produced a report of 42 detainees whose whereabouts had been traced to various internment centres. The report stated five of them had been handed over to the police and five were sent to the political administration in Khyber Agency. Later, the counsel for the agency’s political administration told the court the five detainees handed to his client have been released.

Meanwhile, the division bench was told by Benazir Bibi that her son Jamshed went missing from Sakhakot, Malakand, on August 4, 2009 when he was allegedly picked up by Wazir Bahadur, a resident of Jamal Garhi in Mardan. Jamshed’s family was later informed that he was killed in shelling in Tirah, Khyber Agency.

The court ordered the Jamal Garhi SHO to produce Bahadur on the next date of hearing.

Advocate Khizar Hayat told the court Abdul Wahid had been missing since he was picked up from the jurisdiction of Regi police station in Peshawar on December 31, 2009. He added an FIR had been filed under Section 365, but the person remained missing.

The court then learnt from AAG Waqar that Wahid had crossed over into Afghanistan on several occasions, according to the findings of a joint investigation team. However, the prosecution was not aware of Wahid’s current whereabouts

Similarly, Advocate Ghulam Nabi told the court his client had been picked up by security forces in 2009. No action was taken against the protesters in D-Chowk, Islamabad, yet when families of missing persons held a demonstration, they were subjected to brutality by law enforcers, he added.

Finally, Nargis Bibi informed the bench that her sons, Qadar Shah and Asghar Shah, were taken by security forces in Swat around five years ago. She said the two were students and claimed they were being held at the Lakki Marwat internment centre.

The court directed AAG Waqar and Deputy Attorney General Manzoor Khalil to submit reports of oversight boards in the case of these two students. It also summoned the FATA additional chief secretary and Peshawar commissioner in another case.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2014.