80,000 unidentified bodies buried at Mawach Goth graveyard since 1986, SHC told

Since 1986, around 80,000 unidentified bodies have been buried at a graveyard run by the Edhi Foundation in Mawach Goth, a police officer told the Sindh High Court on Thursday.

The officer's disclosure came during the hearing of a petition related to missing persons being heard by a SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui.

Petitioner Uzma Shahzadi submitted that her two sons, Maaz Ahmed and Talha Ahmed, were allegedly picked up by law enforcers on April 6, 2014 in Korangi area and their whereabouts were still unknown.

The police officer informed the court that since 1986, as many as 85,000 bodies were buried at the Mawach Goth graveyard. He said about 80,000 of them were still unidentified.

He submitted that this figure only came from the records of the Edhi graveyard at Mowach Goth, while there were other organizations too that performing the same job.

The court observed that a number of persons, who lost their lives in incidents like bomb blasts, were still unidentified. The court observed that the possibility could not be ruled out that some of the missing persons would have died in mishaps like bomb blasts.

The provincial government’s focal person said the process of carving out a mechanism to identify such persons was being prepared. He said a DNA data bank would be established to ascertain identities of such persons.

The court directed the provincial law officer to submit details of the proposed mechanism on the next hearing.

The court also took exception over non-recovery of missing persons who have been allegedly picked up by the law-enforcement agencies since April 2014. The court observed that it was quite alarming and surprising that law enforcers were not performing their duties for locating the missing persons.

The court observed that the law enforcement agencies were just making reports to show their efficiency which was contrary to the facts as no progress had been made in recovery of the detainees despite six joint investigation teams (JITs) had been formed.

The court directed the government to take concrete steps for recovery of the detainees and submit a compliance report on the next hearing.