ISLAMABAD – The year of 2011 would be the year of recovery of missing persons, remarked Justice Javed Iqbal while heading a three-member bench that was hearing a suo moto case of missing persons on Monday.
Additional Advocate General (AAG) for Pakistan, K.K. Agha, presented the report of the Inquiry Commission. He said that without permission of the Federal Government the report could not be made public. He, however, said that according to the report 134 persons had been released in eight months. The report also suggested that Parliament should legislate in order to curb the practice of enforced disappearances.
The court has ordered the Federal Government to submit a report regarding the implementation of measures suggested in the CommissionÂ’s report to redress the missing persons issue.
In April 2010, the apex court had decided to give the Government a chance and, therefore, advised it to constitute a commission for hearing of missing personsÂ’ cases. The aggrieved families were directed to cooperate with the commission. The Federal Government respecting the courtÂ’s order formed a 3-member Inquiry Commission including Justice (Retd) Kamal Mansoor Alam, President, Justice (Retd) Fazal-ur-Rehman (Member) and Justice (Retd) Nasira Iqbal (Member). The commission after hearing the aggrieved families suggested for almost eight months some measures to curb the practice
of enforced disappearance.
Justice Javed Iqbal inquired from the AAG whether responsibility was established in disappearances and what action was taken against the responsible persons. Hashmat Habib Advocate informed the court that some missing persons were kidnapped by the state agencies. He said there should be some sort of legislation as proposed in the report, and Chuadhry Ikram hurriedly added particularly to the intelligence agencies.
The Judge said that there should be some tribunal for the hearing of missing person cases.
The AAG said, “Nothing is dodged in the report and it is very courageous.” He said that after 9/11 certain steps were taken outside the law, but no legislation was done to stop enforced disappearance.
Chairperson of Defence of Human Right (DHR) and Public Service Pakistan, Amina Masood, informed the court that though the report had been prepared five months ago, they had not been supplied copy of it. She said, “We have been living in agony for more than five years.”
Justice Jillani remarked as the Attorney General is the principal law officer of the court therefore he should advise the Government to do some legislation to resolve the issue of missing persons.
Amina Masood said that they had pinned hope to the Supreme Court as many people were recovered due to the courtÂ’s interest. She said that the chronic cases like that of Faisal Faraz and Masood Janjua were still pending. Men and boys are still being kidnapped in the presence of thousands of people, she added.
She also supplied her report of missing persons to the court. According to the report, a total of 281 persons are missing. Out of them 164 are in Punjab, 70 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 18 in Balochistan, 15 in Sindh, 9 in FATA and 5 in AJK. She regretted that not a single penny as compensation was given to the affected family. Amina said many commissions were formed in the past but did not prove fruitful. On one hand people are released but with much faster pace people are picked up.
The AAG replied that the Government wanted to regulate missing persons issue. Agha said that he had received the copy of report the previous day (Sunday) and wanted to study thoroughly, therefore needed some time to study it. The court therefore adjourned the case till next Monday.
Agencies add: Terming contents of the report classified, the AAG said that he received the report overnight and could not go into its contents completely.
He said he would require time to consult the Federation on the issue of fixation of responsibility.
Justice Javed in response to it observed that there should be a permanent body to regularly monitor such cases. He also referred to the report submitted by the Judicial Commission seeking a law to monitor agencies.