ISLAMABAD: The Balochistan government conceded before the Supreme Court on Thursday about its handicap in recovering Baloch missing people saying it has no effective control over the Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan which is accused of detaining people.

Consequently, a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk summoned defence and interior secretaries to get complete information about the progress into the case of missing people of Balochistan. To comply with the last order of Jan 15, Nasrullah Baloch, the chairman of the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons, also appeared before the Supreme Court. He, along with Mama Qadeer Baloch, led a long march from Quetta to Karachi on Oct 27 to press for the recovery of the missing Baloch political workers.

Mr Nasrullah Baloch, however, expressed his disappointment over the government’s efforts in finding whereabouts of the missing people and requested the court to include Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain in the bench as both were conversant with all details and the case history of the Baloch missing people. “We have been yearning for justice for the past 13 years,” he lamented, alleging further that the kin of those kidnapped were being allegedly threatened by intelligence agencies personnel.

Nasrullah Baloch opposed the idea of transferring all cases back to the Balochistan High Court which was also seized with similar cases of the missing people.

Advocate Shahid Hamid representing the Balochistan government objected to the statement of Nasrullah Baloch and requested the court not to allow converting the Supreme Court a platform of political broadcast.

Advocate Irfan Qadir representing the FC assured the court that he would meet Shahid Hamid to sort out the issue regarding allegations being levelled against the FC personnel for abducing the people.

During proceedings, Justice Saqib Nisar observed that the court was summoning two secretaries for the purpose of getting direct assistance from them.

Earlier, the court ordered the provincial home department to look into the request of providing security to all 5,000 doctors in the province though the authorities had provided security to 24 senior surgeons only.

Shahid Hamid promised that he would bring the matter to the notice of the provincial government but said that providing security to all doctors would entail a cost of Rs300 million a month. The case will be taken up again on Feb 13.

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