ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: The interior ministry on Wednesday directed all the provinces to expedite efforts to trace the ‘missing persons’.

The ministry’s top officials discussed the issue in the light of the Supreme Court’s directives to the defence and interior secretaries to trace the missing. The home secretaries and senior police officials of the four provinces attended the meeting.

Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah, who presided over the meeting, asked the home secretaries and provincial police chiefs to trace the missing persons as soon as possible.

According to reports submitted by the government in the court, about 110 missing persons have so far been recovered from intelligence agencies.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had warned while hearing the case on Friday that the heads of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and other spy agencies would be summoned by the apex court if the victims of enforced disappearance were not released.

The chief justice had directed the defence and interior secretaries to hold meetings with the heads of the intelligence agencies to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing persons and submit a report to the court by Oct 11. The court had observed that there was substantial evidence that the missing persons were in the custody of the agencies.