LAHORE, July 28: A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Friday gave the Sindh police a period till the third week of September to locate nine members of a ‘hari’ family from Mirpurkhas who went missing eight years ago and who were still untraceable.

A Sindh DIG submitted before the apex court that principal accused Abdur Rehman Marri, a landlord, was on bail and was also seriously ill. He was suffering from hepatitis B and C and doctors had stopped police investigators to interrogate him. He submitted that the police had arrested more accused in the case and all pleaded non-guilty.

On a court question, the DIG stated that the police also did not know if the abducted members of the ‘hari’ family were alive. The court censured the DIG that if he was unable to lead investigation, the Supreme Court would direct the IG to appoint another officer to do the job. However, on a ‘last’ request by the DIG, the court allowed him to continue the effort to find out the abducted persons with the instructions that he should keep sending periodical investigation reports to the court.

The question of the members of the ‘hari’ family being abducted was raised by a Sweden-based NGO which wrote a letter to the chief justice who, under his suo moto powers, turned the letter into a petition for a judicial initiative.

The same bench of the Supreme Court adjourned untill the third week of September proceedings on another suo moto case of the violation of fundamental rights which saw the police allegedly killing accused person Mazhar Iqbal on a Karachi street.

The apex court took notice of a newspaper report and issued notices to the Karachi police. DSP Capt Zubair Ahmad submitted that Mazhar was involved n several criminal offences and when the police found him one day, they asked him to surrender. But he started firing on police and when the police returned the fire, he was killed.

The chief justice quoted from the testimony of a student that the police dragged Mazhar out of a car and shot him dead in cold blood. Another version was that Mazhar was riding a motorcycle with a helmet on head when the police shot him dead. The chief justice told the DSP that his statement was dubious and he was not stating the facts. The court also said if he did not come out with the truth, the inquiry into the death of the accused could be conducted by a sessions judge.