QUETTA: Pakistan’s top judge on Wednesday accused the paramilitary Frontier Corps of involvement in the disappearance of a third of all the missing persons in the country’s restive southwest.

A three-judge bench of the apex court, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, heard the petition filed by the Balochistan Bar Association on the law and order situation in Pakistan’s largest province.

The apex court is investigating cases of missing people in the province, where the military has been accused of rights violations in its bid to put down a separatist insurgency.

The Chief Justice, sitting in the Quetta registry of the Supreme Court, ordered Frontier Corps (FC) officials to produce missing persons before the court.

“Enough evidences are available for involvement of the Frontier Corps in picking up of every third missing person” in Balochistan, he said.

The court also directed the provincial home secretary to produce details of the bodies being recovered in the province.

During the hearing, the chief justice said that the court convenes and issues directives but none of those orders are implemented.

He further inquired how the FC could act without oversight from the civilian administration.

Justice Khawaja said that if the constitution is followed then all issues could be resolved.

Moreover, authorities produced Mufti Abdul Wahab, who was recovered from Hazar Ganji, before the court.

The chief justice reiterated that if the detained individuals had done anything unlawful, then a proper procedure should have been adopted to deal with them.

Later on, the hearing was adjourned to Thursday.

Chaudhry and two other judges also heard a case involving the alleged abduction of 30 people and killing of two tribesmen in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan in February last year.

The court ordered FC officials to produce people from the Khuzdar incident which it had in custody.

Earlier during Tuesday’s hearing, Chief Justice Iftikhar directed the Balochistan home department and law enforcement agencies to recover and produce before the court all missing persons in a week’s time.

The court had also said that the government should use latest technology and equipment to trace the elements involved in sectarian and targeted killings in the province.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area, is rich in oil and gas but remains one of the most deprived areas of the country. Rights activists have accused the military of mass arrests and extra-judicial executions in its bid to put down a separatist insurgency.