The Sindh High Court has ordered the home and defense ministers to submit the most recent reports on cases of missing persons from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) detention center.
The bench led by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto summoned the Home Minister for failing to sign the Provincial Missing Persons Task Force report (PTF). It added that the petitioners were extremely anxious since the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on Missing Persons and the Police Task Force (PTF) had convened more than a dozen meetings. Still, the police knew nothing regarding the location of the missing persons from several years ago.
Officers had found time to collect new reports from the KP prison center while the missing people group was being petitioned. The judge ordered the federal secretary to draft reports on Mohammad Salem-ur-Rehman, Tahir Rehman, Mohammad Dilawar Khan, and Mohammad Furqan Khan and present them at the next hearing.
In addition, the court ordered the relevant provincial authorities to repeat the JIT and PTF meetings and submit a status report before the next hearing. Regarding Pukhtoon Khan and his nephew Bilal, who went missing in north Karachi in 2012, the judge stated that despite the passage of more than a decade, the police had been unable to locate the two individuals.
The Ministry of the Interior official informed the judge that a report on the January 20 PTF session regarding the two missing relatives is now being drafted. The judge stated: “Unfortunately, the Home Secretary is not yet prepared to report. Individual liberty protected by the Constitution is important, and a constitutional obligation binds this court.”
It ordered the Minister of Internal Affairs to appear before the court on March 7 and explain why the PTF report was not prepared/signed. In addition, the court ordered the provincial interior minister to hasten the completion of PTF reports in other identical situations.
As the petitioners have made claims against the paramilitary forces, the court has also instructed the Sindh Pakistan Rangers to provide a new report on one of the petitions before the next hearing. During the investigation, Senior Superintendent (Investigation-III Korangi) stated that he had contacted the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Home Affairs to gather missing person reports from the detention center on Karachi Port Trust Fund employee Furqan. However, no response has yet been received.
In a progress report, investigators stated that 16 JIT and 14 PTF sessions had been held thus far in the Saleem-ur-Rehman case, while the JIT and PTF have reviewed 17 and 14 Furqan cases, although their whereabouts remain unknown. Justice Phulpoto lamented the inability of the IO to gather case reports from the investigation house during the past decade, and the family of the missing was extremely disturbed and dissatisfied that the police had no idea where their loved ones were.
In 2015-2016, the family of these missing persons filed a complaint with the Municipal Party Committee, alleging that law enforcement officers had rounded up the missing persons in several city locations and demanded their return.
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