PHC reissues notices to ministries

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday re-issued notices to the ministries for submission of reports on whereabouts of missing persons.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Mrs Justice Irshad Qaisar asked the law officers representing the provincial and federal governments in the missing persons’ cases to ensure submission of replies before the next hearing, with the direction that it would be the last chance to the respondents.
Out of 30 cases regarding missing persons and those shifted to different internment centres, a progress report regarding one detainee’s case was submitted in the court. Additional Advocate General (AAG) Qaisar Ali Shah informed the bench that in the case of one Ata Gul, progress report was submitted in the court and progress reports and replies in the remaining cases were still awaited.
He said the oversight board had declared one detainee, Rabi Gul, as “grey”. Ata Gul, a relative of the detainee Rabi Gul, claimed in the petition that first the law-enforcing agencies picked up Rabi Gul on September 9, 2012 from Kohat district and he had been missing ever since.
Later, he said they came to know through the court that he had been shifted to the internment centre in Lakki Marwat. The bench also summoned in-charge of the Landikotal internment centre in Khyber Agency in an application seeking medical facilities for the detainee. The petitioner Amanat Ali claimed that his relative Ibrahim, languishing in an internment centre in Landikotal, was seriously ill and needed urgent treatment.
The court asked the in-charge to produce complete medical report of the detainee in the next hearing. During hearing of the cases, the chief justice observed that in most of the missing persons’ cases, the secretary Home and Tribal Affairs did not submit replies and asked the law officer to ensure replies from the secretary home, otherwise, the court would summon the officials concerned in these cases. He observed that despite giving three chances to the respondents in many cases, the replies were incomplete and the court was re-issuing notices.