ISLAMABAD, Nov 8: The Supreme Court on Friday ignored a request by the government to constitute a fresh Joint Investigation Team comprising premier intelligence agencies to hold probe into the case of long missing Tasif Ali alias Danish and ordered the police to continue with its ongoing investigation.

The order came when the DIG, Monitoring and Investigation, Lahore, Abdul Qadir Qayyum, submitted a comprehensive inquiry report before a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The bench had taken up the application of Abida Malik, wife of Tasif Ali, who had requested the court to order production of her husband and that Major Haider of the Military Intelligence (MI) was allegedly involved in the enforced disappearance of her husband. She is being represented by Advocate retired Col Inamur Raheem.

The matter at hand revolves around the disappearance of Tasif Ali, believed to be working for the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen group. He went missing on Nov 23, 2011 and was allegedly picked up by Maj Haider. Tasif Ali remained in contact till the last call with Maj Haider who was then captain and posted at the MI-918 Mangla Cantonment.

The matter was reported to the Sadiqabad Police Station on Dec 5, 2012 and heard by the Lahore High Court on March 19, 2013 but the case was dismissed.

In her complaint, Ms Abida had alleged that harsh words were exchanged between her husband and the caller, believed to be Maj Haider, during a conversation on Nov 22, 2012 at about 4pm. The next day her husband went to offer Juma prayers and is missing since. Tasif Ali had started his business in furniture some time before his disappearance.

The DIG informed the court that the last call received by Tasif Ali came from CMH Mangla Cantonment. Already the sketch of Maj Haider with the help of Dr Mohammad Aslam, father in law of Tasif Ali, had been prepared by the police and the warrants for Maj Haider’s arrest had also been obtained from the court of Illaqa Magistrate on Oct 25, 2013.

The investigating officer informed the court that the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) had been requested for the details of the PTCL numbers from which calls were made by Maj Haider in addition to the request to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) headquarters Islamabad to get the location of the tower through which the cellular number of the accused remained connected on Nov 22, 2012 and Jan 7, 2013.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was also requested on Nov 1, 2013 to identify the land line numbers with complete addresses from which calls were made by the accused whereas another request of Nov 5, 2013 to the Station Commander Mangla Cantonment had been for providing residential record of the accused.

Similarly, Chief Security Officer Jinnah International Airport Karachi on Nov 5, 2013 as well as the Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore were requested for the video record of security cameras for departing passengers of domestic flights of May 5, 2013 from 1pm to 5pm.

He assured the court that all out efforts were under way for the recovery of Tasif Ali. The case will again be taken up on Nov 18.