PESHAWAR, March 15: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday ordered registration of a kidnapping case concerning a missing person after the intelligence agencies expressed ignorance about his detention.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth disposed of a habeas corpus petition filed by Ms Mehr Taja, challenging alleged illegal detention of her brother Shah Khan for the last around 20 months.
Deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand informed the bench that both the ministries of interior and defence had expressed ignorance about Mr Shah's whereabouts.
The bench directed the SHO of Mandani police station in Charsadda to register FIR of the case under Section 365 (kidnapping) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act against persons who the petitioner would nominate.
Advocate Qazi Babar Irshad contended that the detainee was picked up by security forces on July 16, 2010, in the jurisdiction of Mandani police station. He stated that the petitioner was accompanying the detainee when the occurrence took place.
The petitioner claimed that the detainee was having three wives and 14 children and the sole bread earner of the family.
During proceedings of other such cases, the chief justice hinted that he had learnt that the officials dealing with the missing persons' issue on top level had now been planning that except the suspected hardcore militants, who were around 30 per cent, they would refer the cases of remaining suspects in category "B" and "C" to the courts.
The bench also disposed of two other habeas corpus petitions. In one case of a petitioner, Ms Gul Ikhtiara, challenging the detention of her son, Mohammad Jamil, Mr Mohmand produced a statement of an assistant judge advocate general, Lt-Col Noor Ahmad, stating that the detainee would be shifted to an internment centre at Kohat. The court asked the woman that after shifting of the detainee she could approach officials of the internment centre for a meeting with her son.
