The Sindh High Court's (SHC) Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto on Wednesday expressed displeasure over police reports regarding the non-recovery of missing persons and remarked that if progress in the cases remains sluggish, the relevant police officers will be sent to jail.

On November 2, the SHC had directed the provincial police officer to personally look into some petitions pertaining to missing persons and also issued notices to respondents on fresh identical petitions.

An Investigation Officer (IO) in today's hearing briefed the court on the progress in certain missing persons cases.

He said that law enforcement agencies were working on the recovery of one Mohammad Javed who had gone missing from the Sohrab Goth area in 2015.

He added that in another case of the disappearance of a citizen, Sohail, letters had been written to the Rangers and other agencies, but police had not received a reply.

Justice Phulpoto complained that IOs would submit "stereotypical" reports in court each time, and that there had been no progress in any case.

He observed that citizens were becoming increasingly disappointed by such reports.

"Now the court will adopt a strict approach towards police over the issue of missing persons," he said, warning that if no progress was made in the cases, then "police officers will be sent to jail".

In his remarks, he also said that the police should fear God and make an effort to recover missing persons at the earliest.

The court summoned progress reports from the police, Rangers, Sindh government and other parties on January 9, 2019.

The court also issued a show cause notice to the sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) of Gulberg after expressing displeasure that he was not present in court during a hearing on the disappearance of Pasban General Secretary Usman Moazzam's son Saeed Rafique.

Justice Phulputo said that laziness in the matter is unacceptable, and stated that help should be taken from print and electronic media for the recovery of missing persons.