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adviser to the prime minister, the KPK Chief Secretary, the Additional Secretary,
Interior, and the Judge Advocate-General of the Army and all of them assured
the court of cooperation in tracing and recovering the involuntarily disappearing
persons.
In a brief order the court said: “The respondents assured the court that
the matter of enforced disappearances would be taken up by the political
federal authority with the heads of armed forces and spy agencies and a strategy
would be devised to address the issue in order to redress the grievances of the
missing persons’ relatives.”
In May the court was told by the KPK special secretary for home and
tribal affairs that 1,930 ‘missing persons’ had been identified. Of these, 1,035
had been released on surety bonds approved by PHC and 895 had been shifted
to internment centres. At a later stage the court warned the intelligence agencies
that if they did not cooperate it could ban the internment centres.
At one of the hearings, when the court had before it 176 cases of
disappearance, it was told the security agencies had freed nine ‘missing persons’
and the body of one such person had been recovered from a hospital.
On the same day the PHC took notice of the appearance of dead bodies in
gunny bags, particularly in Nowshera and Peshawar. CJ Dost Mohammad
Khan said 16 bodies had been recovered over a few days and neither lawenforcement
agencies nor public representatives had bothered to take notice.
Earlier, the CJ had said the court should not be compelled to issue orders
which might cause the fall of the provincial and federal governments. The
court was hearing cases regarding frequent dumping of dead bodies.
Meanwhile at the beginning of October the commission on ‘missing
persons’, headed by Justice (R) Javed Iqbal, said that 80 cases of disappearance
had been reported to it during the preceding three months. The commission
said that on January 01, 2011 it had 138 cases pending before it and it received
714 new cases during 21 months (till Sept 30, 2012).
By the beginning of November the court appeared to be losing patience
with the various agencies. It directed that all security agencies and the Chief
Secretary should meet to prepare a final list of ‘missing persons’ by December
04. The list was presented on December 18. The court was told 45 ‘missing
persons’ had been released, 261 detainees were described as hard-core militants
and shifted to internment centres. Some were to be shifted to a de-radicalisation
centre.
The hearings continued into the new year.
Administration of justice
Strictures
The PHC chief justice passed extremely severe strictures on the government,
the intelligence agencies and the police in a ‘missing persons’ case.
Sheikh Mohammad from Charsadda district had filed a habeas corpus