PESHAWAR, Aug 16: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday took a suo moto notice of the frequent recovery of gunny bags carrying human bodies in the provincial capital and asked the relevant federal and provincial government officials to explain their apathy towards them.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Roohul Amin Khan summoned the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police officer (PPO) and the capital city police officer (CCPO) directing them to appear in person on Sept 12 and explain why they were indifferent to the situation.

The chief justice took notice of the issue on a report of the court’s human rights cell, which said over a month, 16 bodies packed in gunny bags had been found in the capital city.

It said six bodies were seized on Wednesday last and two on Sunday last.

The bench issued show cause notices to several officials, including federal defence, interior, cabinet and Safron (State and Frontier Region) secretaries, PSO to the prime minister, secretaries to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and chief minister, the provincial chief secretary and home secretary, and PPO, CCPO and the additional chief secretary of Fata Secretariat.

The bench directed these officials to submit separate written response to such cases until Sept 12. It asked if officials had any legitimacy to run the affairs of the government in such state of affairs.

The bench asked them to explain why they had been acting indifferently to the problem for a long period. It was asked why they didn’t come to the rescue of their citizens.

The bench directed deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand and additional advocate general Naveed Akhtar to convey its orders to the said officials for response within the stipulated time.

The chief justice observed that the federal and provincial governments had failed to safeguard the liberty, life and other rights of citizens. He asked what justification, these governments had to function when they couldn’t protect citizens and had instead adopted silence on the matter.

He said nobody had taken notice of these extrajudicial killings though it was the responsibility of the state to take notice of the matter and learn about the victims of such crime and their tormentors.

The chief justice observed that it should be properly probed if any foreign agency or foreign elements were involved in such incidents. He added that the officials had been treating the matter as if it was not their responsibility to trace killers of these people.

“We have been witnessing a Karachi-like situation here as bodies in gunny bags were recovered but nobody bothers to trace out who is behind these killings,” the chief justice observed.

The bench pointed out that these killings were violation of articles 9 and 14 of the Constitution which guaranteed that no person should be deprived of life and liberty, and nobody should be subjected to torture.

It regretted that investigation agencies had yet not recorded the statements of the relatives of the dead people to ascertain when they had gone missing.