Four missing persons recovered in July, says commission report

Published August 4, 2014
Missing persons commission says seven persons were traced last month, but three are still detained at different internment centres of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.—File photo
Missing persons commission says seven persons were traced last month, but three are still detained at different internment centres of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.—File photo

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court-appointed Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) claimed in a report on Monday that it had traced seven missing persons during the month of July.

The commission, comprising former Supreme Court judge Justice Javed Iqbal and retired police officer Mohammad Sharif Virk, has submitted its report to the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC), which works under the Ministry of Interior.

An official of the NCMC told Dawn.com that out of the seven traced people, four missing persons had reached their homes.

The remaining three persons are still detained at different internment centres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said.

The official said that according to the report, the commission has succeeded in recovering four persons including Mohammad Yaseen son of Hussain Badshah, Noor Hayat son of Khayal Muhammad, Muhammad Lucqman son of Spain Gul and Sahfiullah son of Aziz Muhammad. All four were residents of district Hangu and have been reported missing since September 29, 2013.

He added that the commission has succeeded in tracing three additional persons, including Abdul Jaleel son of Yasmeen-Ul-Haq and Atta-ur-Rehman son of Said-Ur-Rehman, who both have been reported missing from Kohat since May 7, 2012.

“They are confined in internment center of Kohat at present,” the official added.

The NCMC official said that Kaleem Ahmed son of Parveen Ahmed – a resident of tehsil Kabal of district Swat who had gone missing on October 9, 2012 – is currently in the internment center of Swat.

When contacted, Khayal Muhammad, the father of Noor Hayat, claimed that the security agencies had kidnapped five persons of his town including his son on September 29, 2013.

Khayal said that the four people including his son returned home recently but the fifth person – Tehseenullah son of Aziz Muhammad – was still in the custody of the security agencies.

“My son and his friends were studying at different colleges and universities of Peshawar and they were not involved in any kind of terrorist activities,” he said.

“It is difficult (for them) to even walk now due to the physical tortured they endured at the hands of the security officials,” he claimed.

On Jan 1, 2011, 138 cases of missing persons were pending before the commission.

During the period of 1st Jan, 2011 to 31st July, 2014, 2036 new cases were received by the commission, raising the total number of cases to 2,174.

Over 750 cases have been disposed of by the commission while more than 1,400 cases are still pending before it.

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