Commission on missing persons to hear 105 cases

LAHORE

One hundred and five cases of missing persons have been fixed for hearing in Lahore by The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CoIoED), data available with The News revealed. CoIoED President Justice (r) Javed Iqbal will head the hearing.

According to data available with The News, 55 cases will be heard from 2nd May to 6th May. 

Forty-nine cases will be heard from 8th of May to 12th of May. The data of Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance showed that 3,915 cases were registered since inception of commission up to 31st of March, 2017; 2,652 cases were disposed of till March 31, 2017; 1977 missing persons were traced, 360 cases were scrapped, and 315 cases of missing persons were dismissed due to other reasons.

Registrar CoIoED, Pervaiz Ahmad, said the presence of commission is a good omen for us. He rejected the allegation that the number of cases of missing persons are increasing and said numbers of missing persons are decreasing. Only 59 cases of missing persons were received during March 2017, commission official data revealed. 

Data shows that 51 persons are still missing from Islamabad, 293 people belong to Punjab are still missing; 87 people are missing from Sindh province. The highest number of missing persons belong to KP as 696 people of this province are still missing. 

It was alleged that the highest number of missing persons were from Balochistan.

The registrar said only 104 people are missing; 43 people are still missing from Fata; 13 from AJK and six from Gilgit-Baltistan. 

Registrar CoIoED, Pervaiz Ahmad said, the commission is working on the issue of missing persons very efficiently. The commission called all stakeholders and inquired about the missing persons. 

It is alleged the commission disposed of cases of those people whose bodies were recovered. The registrar said it was only myth as we found no body.

These were the people who were kidnapped for ransom or police had taken them into custody for interrogation, he added.