KARACHI, Dec 27: The Sindh High Court asked the provincial police inspector-general on Tuesday to conduct an inquiry into the disappearance of a student of Institute of Business Administration within 10 days in order to ascertain his whereabouts. A division bench, comprising Justices Mushir Alam and Athar Saeed, also directed the federal interior secretary to file a personal affidavit declaring on oath whether the student, Affan Leghari, was in the custody of any federal agency or not.

The Sindh home department earlier stated that Affan was neither arrested nor detained by any agency working under it and an additional advocate-general questioned the maintainability of the petition against the provincial government after the statement.

Petitioner Zahida Leghari said in her petition that Affan, her son, was picked up by a law enforcement agency (LEA) personnel from his residence in Gulzar-i-Hijri on Oct 30, 2004, for his alleged links with the extremist religious groups. His academic record was also taken away. He had not been seen or heard of since. The police declined to take any action when she lodged a complaint with it, the petitioner said.

She asserted that her son was being held by the LEA that arrested him without any charge or remand. She prayed the court to order the detainee’s production and free him from illegal confinement.

A federal law officer once again sought time to obtain information from the federal agencies. He expressed his inability to say anything about the whereabouts of the alleged detainee in the absence of information.

Adjourning the case to Jan 9, 2006, with directions to the IGP and the federal interior secretary, the bench expressed its concern over the indifference of LEAs to the plight of the kith and kin of ‘missing’ people.

It observed that all government functionaries were constitutionally and legally obliged to protect the life and liberty of citizens. Instead of affording protection, the LEAs were indifferent and non-cooperative when it came to ascertaining the whereabouts of ‘missing’ people. The bench described the situation as alarming.