Pinning responsibility: PHC orders registration of FIR over missing man

Vacates earlier stay in enforced disappearance case

PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Friday vacated an earlier stay and ordered the registration of an FIR against police officials accused of involvement in the alleged enforced disappearance of a Charsadda resident.

Qari Roohullah went missing from Tarkha village, Shaqbadar in 2013 and his whereabouts remain unknown.

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan was hearing the petition of Roohullah’s brother Syed Sikander Shah, filed by his counsel, Kifayat Shahabkhel.

The counsel told the court Roohullah’s family subsequently learnt local police officials were involved in the disappearance. When they approached the police station for the registration of an FIR, they were turned down, he added.

Shahabkhel said the family then filed an application under Section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code upon which Additional Sessions Judge Asghar Shah Khilji ordered the registration of a case against the concerned SHO and the policemen nominated by the plaintiff.

However, the state approached the PHC which ordered a stay on the FIR’s registration. Shahabkhel argued the victim’s family has considerable evidence against the accused police officials. Upon hearing the arguments from both sides, the court gave the green light for the registration of the FIR.

Police involvement in enforced disappearances has come to the fore in many cases over the past few years.

On May 23, 2014, judicial magistrate Zafarullah Khan convicted former Pishtakhara SHO Arshad Khan in the disappearance case of Khairur Rehman. Rehman was picked up on May 9, 2009 by law-enforcement agencies.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2015.