PESHAWAR, Feb 14: A meeting of the apex committee, comprising Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor, chief minister and Peshawar Corps Commander, was scheduled for Wednesday to discuss the issue of missing persons, Peshawar High Court was informed.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Azmatullah Malik was informed by a deputy attorney general, Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand, on Tuesday that the meeting had been convened by the governor in accordance with an earlier order of the high court.
Mr Mohmand submitted a letter, sent to him by a deputy secretary, wherein he was informed that the issue of missing persons was under serious consideration. It was added in the letter that a meeting of the apex committee would be held on Feb 15.
In the light of said letter the high court bench adjourned hearing in several cases of missing persons to March 8.
The high court, while hearing a habeas corpus petition on Jan 21, had directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and government to convene a joint meeting of high-ups including the governor, chief minister, corps commander, inspector general of Frontier Corps and regional heads of intelligence agencies to chalk out a plan to deal with the cases of missing persons.
At the very outset of the proceedings when the bench took up for hearing a petition filed by Anwar Begum, wife of a missingperson, the chief justice asked an official of the ministry of defence for how long the issue would continue.
The bench observed that if they had acted in accordance with law they would not have faced embarrassment before the Supreme Court a day earlier.
The PHC chief justice observed that they had ordered that the bigwigs should sit together and decide how to tackle the issue. It was added that the detainees should be shifted to the internment centres following which at least their relatives would know whether they were dead or alive.
The official, Commander Shahbaz, director (legal) at ministry of defence, stated that they had been in contact with the intelligence agencies and submitting reports to the court.
The petitioner and her sister-in-law Nek Amala had sent an application to the chief justice wherein they had stated that their husbands, Akhtar Ali and Sher Ali, who are brothers, were picked on May 24, 2009, by the security forces in Swat following which their whereabouts were not known. The said application was converted into a habeas corpus petition by the chief justice.
The detainee, Sher Ali, was set free whereas Akhtar Ali has still been missing while the petition is pending.
Mr Mohmand submitted an affidavit on behalf of ministry of defence stating that the detainee had not been in custody of any of the intelligence agency.
Another petition filed by Ikramullah Khattak, challenging the detention of his cousin, Jamal Abdul Nasir, was also adjourned to March 8.
The petitioner stated that the detainee, a resident of Defence Colony in Peshawar, was picked up by persons clad in uniform of Elite Force from near his residence on Jun 29, 2011, and since then he had been incommunicado.
Another petition has been filed by Islam Jana, who alleged that her husband, Mohammad Shair, was taken into custody on March 31, 2010, from Al-Khalid Hotel in Peshawar by the security forces.
She claimed that he was cleared by the forces and handed over to the local police that implicated him in a murder case.
She stated that he was again taken into custody by the security agencies outside Peshawar Central Prison after he was granted bail by a local court on Jun 29, 2010. Since then he had been missing, she added. The detainee belonged to Agra village in Peshawar.
Similarly, the bench adjourned hearing of a petition filed by Gul Ikhtiara, who alleged that her son Jamil Khan was arrested by law enforcement agencies on May 3, 2011, when he was cultivating his land at Angoor Koroona in Charsadda district.