PESHAWAR, July 3: The Peshawar High Court was informed on Wednesday that the federal government had released Rs500,000 for payment of compensation to an old woman, whose only son was allegedly picked up by intelligence agencies being killed and dumped by the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway.

Deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand told a bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Qaiser Rasheed that the federal finance division had released the amount of compensation and the cheque would be issued by Accountant General Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) in the next few days.

He said the said cheque would be handed over to the woman, Hamida Bibi, on the next hearing on July 17 into the case about missing person Farmanullah’s killing.

The court has earlier directed both the federal and provincial governments to pay compensation to the tune of Rs1 million to the woman as she had lost son, the sole breadwinner of her family, under mysterious circumstances.

She said her son was a watchman in Nauthia area.

Additional advocate general Naveed Akhtar said he had also taken up the matter with the provincial government and hopefully, a cheque of Rs500,000 would be released to the woman before the next hearing.

The bench later adjourned the hearing until July 17 directing both the federal and provincial governments to ensure that the payment should not be further delayed.

It observed that it was the responsibility of the state to protect public life and property.

The woman has claimed that her son was taken into custody in Peshawar by intelligence personnel over a year ago and later by the end of 2012, his body stuffed in gunnysack was found on the Motorway in the jurisdiction of Parang police station.

The woman had submitted an application to the chief justice for justice. The application was later made a writ petition.

She claimed that her family had been struggling to make ends meet since the disappearance of her son.

In the same case, the chief justice had ordered production of the closed-circuit television camera footage of the said portion of the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway.

However, the court was informed that no CCTV camera was installed on the motorway. There followed issuance of orders by the court to install CCTV cameras on the motorway.

The DAG on Wednesday informed the bench that in accordance with its earlier order, the federal finance division had allocated funds for installation of CCTV cameras from Peshawar to Jehangira on the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway for crime control.

He said the federal communication ministry had published an advertisement calling for tenders of CCTV camera installation following which 18 companies were in the running for the contract.

The bench directed the DAG to ensure that high-quality CCTV cameras with the facility to film speeding vehicles at nighttime were installed.

It observed that after installation of CCTV cameras, a team of the high court would inspect them and if any wrongdoing was found during the award of the contract, action would be taken against the responsible officials.