ISLAMABAD: The government informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that none of the 134 people traced by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances was found to be eligible for compensation.Additional Attorney General K.K. Agha told a three-judge bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali that a sub-committee formed by the government had taken up each case on merit and found that none of the victims qualified for compensation.

The bench had taken up a number of cases relating to missing persons.

“Let the court examine the compensation policy of the government so that it could ask the government for a proper legislation for the compensation of missing persons,” Justice Javed Iqbal observed, indicating the bench’s dissatisfaction with the government’s response.

The commission on missing persons, constituted on an advice of the Supreme Court, had recommended the payment of compensation to the victims. But a seven-member committee, headed by Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq, at a meeting held on January 13, finalised a policy which suggested that compensation would be given only to those people who were in the custody of any intelligence agency or security forces but later released without any charge.

The committee had constituted a three-member sub-committee comprising Director (Operations) of the National Crisis Management Cell Farid Ahmed Khan, Deputy Director Legal of the Ministry of Defence Commander M. Hussain Shahbaz and ISI representative Lt-Col (retd) Ghulam Abbas to examine the cases. It said that although a few victims alleged that they had been kept in the custody, there was no evidence to substantiate their claims.

A report submitted to the court by K.K. Agha said that intelligence agencies did not have any legal authority to keep a person in custody nor had they admitted at any stage that they had taken into custody any of the traced persons. “Thus no further progress could be made by the sub-committee as no case falls in the category of persons entitled for compensation,” it said.

The court said it was receiving a number of complaints about disappearances from Swat where the government had launched a major operation against militants and ordered the commission’s secretary to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.

“In view of the sensitivity of the missing persons’ issue, parliament should take cognizance of the matter and make legislation to eliminate the dilemma of missing persons for all times to come,” the court suggested.

The court had earlier stressed the need for a proper legislation to define the role of security agencies in the missing persons’ issue.

Mr Agha assured the court that its concerns would be conveyed to the government.

Justice Javed Iqbal deplored that not a single culprit involved in targeted killings in Balochistan could be arrested.

Justice Fayyaz expressed concern over a new trend of discovering bullet-ridden bodies of missing people after registration of cases.

Defence of Human Rights chairperson Amina Masood Janjua, who has been campaigning for the release of detained persons, including her missing husband Masood Janjua, submitted a list of 23 fresh cases of missing persons.

Advocate Hashmat Habib, the counsel for one of the complainants, requested the court to seek details of ‘safe houses’ run by intelligence agencies.

Justice Iqbal said that one of the safe houses of the agencies was near the judges’ enclosure, but explained that it was in fact a guest-house, and not a torture chamber.

The court asked the Karachi police chief to conduct a thorough probe into complaints by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement that 28 people had been missing since 1992. The commission on missing persons will also look into the matter while the Sindh inspector general will submit a report on the complaints in two weeks.

The court again ordered police stations to lodge FIRs on missing persons when approached by complainants and said that action would be taken against a police station concerned as well as the IG for violating the order.

The court decided to take up the cases of missing persons twice a month.

It also decided to separately hear the complaints about missing persons because of alleged extra-judicial killings of innocent people in the Lal Masjid operation on July 3, 2007.