PESHAWAR, May 16: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday rejected an investigation report regarding dumping of bodies stuffed in gunnysacks in different areas and ordered re-investigation in these cases as police had not fixed responsibility.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Irshad Qaiser observed that the investigation was inconclusive and incomplete as investigation officers had not traced any of the culprits in these cases.

The bench ordered a fair re-investigation into the matter to trace the real culprits and brought before the court. The bench fixed June 19 for next hearing with the direction to submit progress report.

The bench observed that if the officials were scared of naming the culprits, they should secretly inform the court about it and produce the names in sealed envelope, which nobody except the court would be allowed to de-seal.

This issue was referred to the chief justice by the human rights cell of the court in Aug last year after newspapers reported that 26 bodies were dumped in different areas. Afterwards, several more bodies, several of ‘missing persons,’ were found in different areas.

During previous hearing, the court had directed police to submit the investigation report regarding these killings in a sealed envelope. It ordered production of the entire details regarding investigation in these cases.

When the bench took up for hearing the case on Thursday, additional advocate general Naveed Akhtar and some investigation officers said in accordance with the order of the court, they had submitted the investigation report in a sealed envelope.

The bench went through the report and observed that the investigation officers had mentioned that apparently the killed persons were militants, but had not mentioned who had killed them or whose custody they were in.

The chief justice observed that when investigators had suspected that they were militants, they should have also mentioned the cases pending against them.

The officials said they had tried their level best to conduct fair investigation into these cases and had recorded statements of several relatives of the dead persons, but they had not named anyone as suspects.

The chief justice observed that investigators had extended favour to the people behind dumping of bodies either for fear or some other consideration.

The bench observed that the officials should realise that the court was guarantor of fundamental rights of citizens and would not allow anyone to carryout extra-judicial killings.

The chief justice observed that the system would not improve unless such like killings had been abandoned.

He said earlier, he had issued several guidelines to police for investigating such cases to reach proper conclusion.

Meanwhile, the bench clubbed with the body dumping case a writ petition field by father of a missing person whose body was later on found dumped along a road in Mansehra.

The petitioner, Qazi Fazal Ahmad, had filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the alleged illegal detention of his son, Qazi Baseer Ahmad.

He alleged that his son was picked up by the Elite Force of police on July 15, 2011, from his house at Speen Khak, Nowshera, and another boy, Shahid Afridi, was also picked up from a nearby seminary.

Later, he said Shahid Afridi was freed and he had also recorded his statement before the high court, but his son remained missing.

While the said petition was pending, the court ordered the defence ministry on Sept 25, 2012 that the alleged detainee should either be set free or shifted to any notified internment centre.

The petitioner said on Oct 9, they were informed that somebody had dumped the body of the detainee at a deserted place in Lasan Nawab area of Mansehra district. On the order of the high court, police in Mansehra had filed an FIR against unidentified killers.