Tears of the "missing"

Published February 14, 2012

It was an emotion-filled scene for reporters covering the production before the Supreme Court on Monday of the remaining seven of the 11 prisoners who had mysteriously gone missing from outside Rawalpindi's Adilyala Jail in May 2010.

The prisoners fell into wordless embrace of their relatives and remained locked there crying and thanking Allah for the little mercy.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez had ordered Advocate Raja Muhammad Irshad, the legal counsel for directors general of the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence, and Judge Advocate General (JAG) for the first time to ensure the suspects' production at all cost on Monday.

The court had taken up a petition of Ruhaifa, mother of three brothers picked by the agencies. One of them was later found dead.

The prisoners produced before the court were Mazhar-ur-Haq, Shafiq-ur-Rehman, Muhammad Shafiq, Dr Niaz Ahmed, Abdul Majeed, Gulroze and Abdul Basit. Four of them were brought from Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital and three from the Internment Centre in Parachinar. - Text from the newspaper

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