KARACHI, Oct 25: The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the interior secretary and Sindh home secretary and police chief to establish a national coordination cell with the assistance of all focal persons across the country for close coordination amongst the law-enforcement agencies for sharing and collecting information regarding the suspect in their respective jurisdictions.
A division bench, headed by Chief Justice Mushir Alam and also comprising Justice Muhammad Farooq Shah, gave this direction while hearing one of the over a dozen constitutional petitions seeking whereabouts of different missing persons.
Petitioner Razia Shahid moved the court against the inefficiency of police in tracking down her husband, Mohammed Shahid, a driver with the City District Government Karachi.
She impleaded the Kalakot station house officer and station investigation officer, Lyari senior superintendent of the police, provincial and city police chiefs and the home secretary as respondents.
She submitted that her husband had on June 23, 2011 gone to Kalakot along with other city government employees as part of an anti-mosquito drive in the vicinity on June 23, 2011 when he was kidnapped and his whereabouts were unknown since then.
The petitioner, represented by Advocate Mohammad Majid Afzal Khan, submitted that she had lodged an FIR for her husband’s kidnapping, but the investigators failed to locate him.
She prayed to the court to order the police to make efforts for the recovery of her ‘missing’ husband.
On Thursday, the investigation officer of the case appeared in court to inform that he had got some clue to the suspected kidnappers and he had written letters to the district police officers of Toba Tek Singh and Lasbella in this regard. However, he complained that he had not received any reply or information from the police officers.
The bench directed the interior secretary, Sindh home secretary and inspector-general of police to establish a national coordination cell for better coordination and cooperation amongst the law-enforcement agencies across the country.
The hearing was adjourned to Nov 29.
Meanwhile, the same bench issued a notice to the chief executive officers of two cellular companies — Zong Mobile Company and Warid Telecom — to appear in person in court to explain as to why proceedings for insubordination of court’s order may not be initiated against them in a ‘missing’ person case.
The bench was seized with the hearing of a constitutional petition filed by Rehmania Bibi, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, against the kidnapping of her son, Falak Naz, on Oct 24, 2007.
She stated that her son, a car dealer, was on his way when he was picked up by the law-enforcement agencies and his whereabouts were unknown since then. She stated that she had lodged an FIR but no trace of her son was found as yet.
Appearing before the bench, investigation officer Inspector Shahid Ali stated that the two cellular companies did not provide him requisite information despite the emails he had sent them on Sept 26, Oct 9 and Oct 17, 2012 for this.
The bench expressed displeasure over the non-cooperation on part of the cellular companies.
The court observed: “In a number of cases, we have been regularly directing the cellular companies and even the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has issued instructions to the cellular companies to provide all the call data record and information of the subscriber to the law enforcing agencies.” The bench issued the notice to the CEOs of the two companies to appear in court on Nov 15.