Missing persons’ cases: PHC summons defence ministry official

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has summoned Director Legal, Ministry of Defence, to explain as to why an agency was not submitting reply in the missing persons’ cases.

A single bench of Chief Justice PHC Waqar Ahmad Seth issued the notice to the official. He was directed to appear and explain the position of the agency for not submitting a reply in the missing persons’ cases despite the court orders. The bench passed the direction in the writ petition about a missing person, Abdul Ghani, a resident of Matani area of Peshawar. During the hearing, Kamranullah, the focal person for missing persons, informed the bench that all the agencies and respondents, except one, had submitted reply in the case. He requested the court to give some time for the submission of reply by the agency. The court reminded the focal person that the court had issued the first notice in February last year to the respondents and then re-issued the notices for submission of comments. The chief justice observed that as per the high court’s previous order, all respondents should file replies within 30 days.

He noted that in this and other cases several months have passed but the respondent agency had yet to submit reply to the court in the missing persons’ cases.

The relatives of the missing person claimed that law-enforcement agencies in January 2018 had first picked up three persons including Safeer, Mubashir and Abdul Ghani. They said, the agencies later freed Safeer and Mubashir, but Abdul Ghani is still untraceable.

The bench issued notice to the director legal of the ministry to appear on September 23 when the case would be heard again.