KARACHI: The Sindh High Court expressed on Thursday extreme displeasure with police and the head of a joint investigation team for showing no interest in locating the whereabouts of missing persons.

When dozens of missing persons’ petitions came up before the two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar, the police officials turned up along with progress reports and said that they were still clueless about the alleged detainees.

The bench deplored that despite repeated directives, police officers were not making any progress in the cases while the correspondence between the investigating officers and senior police officers took months in such cases, adding that JIT sessions were apparently not going beyond photo sessions.

A focal person for the home department submitted a report of provincial task force (PTF) which stated that on the directive of the court, the PTF held its session last month to discuss the cases of Ahmed Minhas and some other missing persons in detail.

The JIT sessions were conducted in which the family members of the victims were also invited, but no progress was made, it added.

The report further said that the PTF directed the JIT head and the IOs to put extra efforts to trace out the detainees and also visit the prisons of Sindh in order to locate them.

A DSP submitted progress report in another identical petition and said that no progress had so far been made regarding the whereabouts of Maher Haroon, adding that the victim’s father was an ASI in the Balochistan police.

The court directed the DSP to record the statement of the detainee’s father and make all effort for his recovery and file report till June 6.

The wife of Haroon petitioned the SHC and contended that personnel of the Federal Investigation Agency had taken away her husband from Defence Housing Authority in 2015.

Missing children

Meanwhile, the same bench directed the IOs to make serious efforts for the recovery of missing children and submit reports on June 6.

The directives came on a petition filed by a non-government organisation in 2012 regarding children who went missing from different parts of Karachi.

The petitioner contended that police were not properly investigating these cases which resulted in many avoidable deaths.

In a previous hearing, the court had ordered registration of cases of about 12 missing children.

The SSP of Anti-Car Lifting Cell through a report informed the bench that FIRs had been registered in seven cases, while four children had returned to their homes on their own while the family of one missing child was residing in Sialkot and efforts were being made to establish contact with them.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2018