PESHAWAR, Oct 24: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday summoned the sector commander of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and provincial home secretary in a case of “enforced disappearance” of a suspected militant who was allegedly taken into custody after his release from the Peshawar central prison last month.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Asadullah Khan Chamkani fixed Nov 12 for next hearing of a petition filed by one Asadullah, brother of the missing suspect Roohullah, with the direction that the home secretary and ISI sector commander should also file a written reply before that date.

Advocate Shabbir Hussain appeared for the petitioner and stated that the detainee was arrested in connection with a blast carried out near election office of a candidate before May 11 general elections. He added that the detainee was released on bail by an anti-terrorism court on Sept 26, but was taken away by ISI personnel from outside the prison.

The bench observed that under the constitution the home secretary was responsible for ensuring liberty of an individual in the province, and therefore he should appear and explain why he had failed in performance of this duty. The bench ordered that the ISI sector commander should also appear in person and explain his position.

The bench also took up for hearing around 280 habeas corpus petitions filed by relatives of “missing persons” and adjourned hearing of those cases to Nov 27 after accepting plea of additional attorney general Syed Attique Shah, seeking more time on behalf of the federal government for evolving a mechanism to ensure recovery of missing persons.

As usual relatives of “missing persons” including women and children turned up in large number. Some of them were seen weeping outside the courtroom.

The chief justice observed that the ISI was so powerful that none of the institutions, including parliament and federal government, was willing to bring it in the ambit of law and make legislation concerning it. He observed that whenever there was any move to make this agency subservient to law it used its influence to thwart all such steps.

“For functioning of the system it is necessary that the intelligence agencies should follow the Constitution of Pakistan and law of the land,” the chief justice observed, adding that even the American CIA, which was one of the most powerful agencies in the world, was answerable to the Congress.

Mr Shah stated that the federal government had constituted a task force on missing persons whose chairman was an additional secretary of the federal ministry of interior. He stated that the task force included chief secretaries and home secretaries of the four provinces, the provincial police officers, commissioner Islamabad and a representative of ministry of defence.

The AAG stated that the task force had been working to evolve a mechanism for ensuring recovery of the missing persons.

He stated that the task force had constituted a sub-committee which had compiled its initial report which would be submitted to the task force and high court. He requested the court to allow a few weeks to the government to resolve this issue in an amicable manner.

The bench observed that though it had not been expecting much from the task force, it would accept his request.

The chief justice observed that on several occasions they had directed that illegal detentions centres should be closed down, but they had reports that several illegal centres still existed in tribal areas.

Meanwhile, the bench summoned deputy superintendent of police Shahnawaz Khan on Nov 12 in another petition challenging the disappearance of a person named Faheemul Haq. Relatives of the alleged detainee had accused the DSP of taking him away a few months ago and since then he had been missing.

The bench observed that apparently the DSP was notorious as he had earlier also been charged in several other cases of missing persons.