Missing Persons Case:

SC Hints at Calling Agencies’ Heads

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday directed the defence and interior secretaries and the director general of the Crisis Management Cell (CMC) to appear in court on April 27 after the deputy attorney general told the court that the Interior Ministry had not given him details on the issue of the people reported missing by their relatives despite the SC’s orders.

Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Raja Irshad also told the SC that he could not assist the court anymore since CMC DG Brig (r) Javed Iqbal Cheema had not fulfilled the assurance he had given to the SC at the last hearing that he would submit a comprehensive statement on each complaint and petition on the missing people to the court.

A three-member SC bench headed by Justice Javed Iqbal was hearing petitions by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) former senator Farhatullah Babar along with complaints by Amina Masood Janjua, Saqlain Mehdi and others.

All these petitions are related to the disappearance of various people who have been allegedly taken into custody by intelligence agencies. The HRCP petition deals with 141 missing persons, most of them from Balochistan.

Farhatullah Babar urged the SC to ask the government under which law the intelligence agencies operated so that the issue of disappeared citizens could be examined in its correct perspective.

He said the parliament had been denied even a copy of the law let alone its right to make and improve the legislation governing the intelligence agencies.

HRCP Chairwoman Asma Jehangir suggested that all the intelligence services be summoned in court. The bench ruled that the heads of the intelligence agencies would be summoned in court if needed.

Amina Masood said that Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had directed the representatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence (MI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in December to appear in court and reply to questions regarding the missing people, but there had been no development so far.

Justice Javed Iqbal said the issue was sensitive and the court was examining it very seriously. He said that it would be wrong to say that there was no development in the case because some missing people had been found.