ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Interior Imtiaz Safdar Warraich on Friday informed the Senate that the PPP-led coalition government was pursuing the cases of missing persons vigorously and that a total of 314 missing persons had been traced due to these efforts.

Responding to supplementary questions raised by the members during the question hour, the minister said that an inquiry commission had been formed on enforced disappearances which former Supreme Court judge Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal was presiding over. He said the commission had been able to trace 181 missing persons.

He said that initially the commission was headed by Justice Fazlur Rehman, former Balochistan High Court (BHC) judge, who was later appointed as member Election Commission of Pakistan.

Warraich said that the report of the commission under Justice Fazlur Rehman had also been presented in the apex court while the same had also been submitted with the prime minister. He said under Justice Rehman, 133 persons were recovered while the commission under Justice Iqbal had helped trace 181 more missing people.

The minister said that the number of cases transferred to the recently formed commission were 138 while 538 new cases had been received by the commission. He said till date, 209 cases had been disposed while 467 cases were pending.

Replying to a question regarding the missing prisoners who had been set free from jails, the minister said that the courts’ decisions were binding on all state institutions and that agencies had no role in such matters.