ISLAMABAD, Aug 2: The federal government informed the Supreme Court on Friday a national policy on missing persons and monitoring of their recovery through coordinated efforts of all stakeholders would be announced soon by a federal task force constituted on July 24.

The task force was appointed after the court had directed Attorney General Muneer A. Malik to come up with a government policy on the missing persons. It comprises Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar, additional interior secretary, four provincial home secretaries, additional chief secretary of Fata, four additional inspectors general police of the special branch, a member of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, chief commissioner of Islamabad, joint secretaries of defence and law, inspector general (prisons) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and representatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency and Military Intelligence.

In a statement submitted to a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry hearing a number of cases of missing persons, AAG Tariq Khokhar said the first meeting of the task force was held on July 29 in the Ministry of Interior. It constituted a sub-committee and asked it to formulate concrete proposals for the policy on missing persons.

The sub-committee held a meeting on July 30 and agreed on an action plan to implement the court’s orders.

The AAG said a meeting had been held in the office of the attorney general on July 31. It was also attended by the authorities regulating different internment centres in Fata, Pata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The meeting was informed about three notifications issued on May 21 by the KP home and tribal affairs department for the constitution of oversight boards under Regulation 14 of the Action (in Aid of Civil Powers) Regulations 2011 for all internment centres in Kohat and Malakand and Bannu divisions.

The department submitted standard operating procedures for meetings of the relatives with detainees in the internment centres. It also submitted copies of some orders of internment as samples in order to show the basis of specific allegations for detaining the suspects in the centres.

The AAG assured the court that the federal government would fully implement all its orders.

Taking up the case of Khairur Rehman who went missing on Feb 9, 2009, from Bajaur, the court provided the KP police another opportunity to recover him by August 6 without fail.

The court admonished KP Inspector General Ehsan Ghani for protecting Inspector Arshad who had been identified by the victim’s family as the man who had arrested Khairur Rehman.

The IG said Inspector Arshad was on bail and had been suspended. He assured the court that he would be arrested the moment his bail period was over.

Father of Abdul Rehman had filed a complaint in the court about the disappearance of his son.

According to the complaint, Khairur Rehman was a prayer leader in a mosque in Bajaur. An Afghan refugee used to come to offer prayers in the mosque and got acquainted with him and started living in the upper portion of his house without any rent.

On Feb 9, 2009, the local authorities headed by Inspector Arshad had raided his house and arrested the Afghan national, along with Khairur Rehman, his sister Khaista Jan and her mentally retarded husband.

Police later released the Afghan national after taking a bribe of Rs1.2 million. Rehman’s sister and her husband were released after nine days.

Since then the whereabouts of Khairur Rehman is not known despite repeated directions by the apex court to KP police to trace him.