KARACHI: Expressing resentment over the performance of police to probe missing persons’ cases, the Sindh High Court (SHC) said police were helpless to collect reports from internment centres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto also deplored that police were submitting stereotype progress reports as there was nothing substantial in such reports.

It noted that the case of a person, who had gone missing in 2015, was discussed before a joint investigation team (JIT) and the provincial task force (PTF) for missing persons around 10 times, but no clue yet.

“It is very unfortunate that till today reports from internment centres of the KP have not been collected by the IO. Perhaps, police are helpless in collecting such reports,” it added.

Defence, interior secretaries told to get reports from internment centres in KP

The bench also noted that such reports from internment centres in other identical cases were also still awaited.

It directed the secretaries of the ministries of interior and defence to collect reports from the internment centres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and submit the same before the court or else appear in person on April 26.

The bench also ordered that the sessions of JIT and PTF needed to be repeated before the next hearing.

The lawyer for one of the petitioners informed the court that the family of missing person Syed Tahir Ali was suffering and required financial assistance.

An additional advocate general (AAG) Sindh submitted that the matter had been taken up for provision of some help.

However, the bench said that mere words were not sufficient and directed the AAG to file a categorical statement in that regard.

The bench passed these orders in two petitions filed in 2015.

Earlier, the Sindh government had sanctioned one-time compensation to the families of 12 missing persons (Rs500,000 per family) whose cases fell within the category of enforced disappearance.

A petition was filed by the father-in-law of Syed Tahir Ali stating that the personnel of Pakistan Rangers had raided the house of Ali in Jan 2015 in Orangi Town and picked him up, and since then his whereabouts were not known.

The other petition sought recovery of Faheem alias Anda and Mohammad Saqib and police contended that both were the activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

A sister of Faheem petitioned the SHC and contended that both men had gone missing in May 2015 in Phase 5, Defence Housing Authority.

Published in Dawn, April 5rd, 2023