close
Friday March 29, 2024

Nine missing persons traced after three years

By Akhtar Amin
March 25, 2017

Include a lecturer and an FC employee

PESHAWAR: Nine missing persons including a lecturer and a member of the Frontier Constabulary who remained missing for the last several years have been traced in various internment centres of Khyber Pakhtunkwa and Fata.

Deputy Attorney General Musarratullah Khan told The News on Thursday that these persons were terror suspects and would have to face trial under the law once the authorities at the internment centres determined their fate. He said that they would be tried in the military courts if declared ‘black’ meaning there are hardcore militants.

They include Asad Khan and Lal Zeb being held at the Paithom internment centre in Swat, Ayub who is jailed at the Fizzagat internment centre in Mingora, Muhammad Idrees under custody at the Tall Scouts internment centre, Ishaq, Salman Khan, Abdul Samad and Hazrat imprisoned at the Ghallanai internment centre in Mohmand Agency and Muhammad Ibrahim held at the Lakki Marwat internment centre.

Following the Peshawar High Court (PHC) directives giving the last chance for tracing out the missing persons, the Deputy Attorney General said the officials concerned located these men whose whereabouts were not known to their families for the last three years.

As per the writ petition filed in the PHC, Naveed, a close relative of the missing person Asad Khan, resident of Batkhela in Malakand Agency claimed that he was a lecturer of physics in Government Degree College in Agra, Malakand Agency.

He maintained that the military personnel including Major Safdar and Javed along with Malakand Levies members on January 5, 2014 picked Asad Khan from his house and was untraceable since then.

Now, as per the report sent by te commissioner Malakand division, Asad Khan has been traced at the Paithom internment centre in Charbagh in Swat.

Besides, Sazila, wife of Lal Zeb working in the Frontier Constabulary, claimed in the petition that her husband was seized by unknown uniformed personnel on December 18, 2014 without any prior information or charges. He was later found at the Paithom internment centre and would now face legal action.

Following directives of a PHC division bench headed by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments jointly named the provincial home secretary as the focal person for the ‘missing person’ cases pending in the court.

The representatives of the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments on March 2 told the PHC bench that the home secretary would be represented by the director (legal) of the home department and would appear before the court in the missing persons’ cases.

After becoming the PHC chief justice in December 2016, Justice Yahya Afridi issued several guidelines to the interior and defence ministries and the provincial home department to produce the relevant information expeditiously for early disposal of the cases of the missing persons.

On February 16, the chief justice had directed the defence and interior secretaries and the home secretary to produce without further delay the details of all missing persons whose cases were pending in the court.