A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court headed by Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel on Dec 15 directed the ministry of defence and the inspector general of Frontier Corps (FC) to submit report about the internees detained at all the internment centres set up in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) under two regulations promulgated in 2011.

Hearing several habeas corpus petitions filed by relatives of “missing persons”, the bench directed that the report should be submitted within 20 days whereas the cases would be again taken up for hearing on Jan 14. The court also ordered the ministry and the IG FC to submit details about all such internees whose cases had been referred to courts for prosecution or were under investigation with different agencies.

The bench also observed that despite assurance given in the past by the concerned deputy attorney general no progress had been made in these cases by the authorities concerned.

The high court has been issuing directives from time to time regarding the affairs of these internment centres to the ministries of defence and interior, the provincial home department and IG FC. However, no noteworthy progress has been taking place in the cases of hundreds of internees detained in these centres.

The affairs of these centres shroud in secrecy and apparently the provincial government has little say in the supervision of centres situated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In fact, the affairs of these centres are not clear and the future of those interned there still hangs in the balance.

The KP home department had on April 12, 2008 sent a letter to the ministry of interior seeking permission for calling the army and the FC in aid of civil power in the province under Article 245 of the Constitution. The army was called due to activities of the terrorists, including attacks on the convoys of law enforcing agencies and their pickets and posts, police patrols, police posts and police stations and NATO containers besides cases of kidnapping of government officials, hijacking vehicles; blasting music centres, schools, barber shops and internet cafes; and threatening NGOs.

In response to that letter the National Crisis Management Cell at the ministry of interior sent a letter on April 16 to the secretary ministry of defence, requesting for deployment of troops in aid of civil power to combat acts of terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP). Similarly, different tribal agencies were declared conflict zones from time to time by the Fata Secretariat. Through a notification on Dec 29, 2009 the Bara sub-division of Khyber Agency was declared a conflict zone.

Those were the days when militants were calling the shots in different tribal agencies as well as parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially Malakand division. Swat was under effective control of militants led by Maulana Fazlullah, now heading the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. Finally, during military operations in different areas, especially Malakand, hundreds of people were taken into custody on suspicion of their involvement in militancy. Dozens of buildings occupied by the security forces were turned into detention centres where those suspects were detained.

That situation resulted into pouring of habeas corpus cases in the high court. Those detainees were in a legal limbo as the authorities concerned had on different occasions admitted before the court that their cases could not be referred to proper courts as they would be acquitted due to lack of required evidence.

To provide legal backing to those detentions, then president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari promulgated two regulations – Action (in aid of civil power) Regulation, 2011 – for Fata and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata). These regulations provided that it should be deemed to have taken effect from Feb 1, 2008.

In the light of the regulation the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home secretary had issued a notification on July 20, 2011 through which nine detention facilities were notified as internment centres in the province. These centers include: sub-jail Paitham (Pak-Austrian Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management), Swat; sub-jail Fiza Gut, Swat; sub-jail at Malakand; district jails Lakki Marwat, Kohat and Timergara (Lower Dir); and Frontier Corps forts at Drosh (Chitral), Chakdara and Timergara.

Another notification was issued by the additional chief secretary, Fata, on Aug 12 under which around 34 internment centers were notified. Through that notification all the forts of Frontier Corps and political lock-ups in the seven tribal agencies were declared internment centres.

The provincial government had last year submitted six lists to the high court of the internees kept in different internment centres. The last list was submitted on Oct 29, 2014 according to which around 1,000 internees were kept in different centres. Majority of them were in the centres set up in Swat and Lakki Marwat, Kohat and Malakand.

An expert dealing with cases of “enforced disappearances” said that the regulations provided a mechanism for how the cases of internees would be referred to courts for trials. He stated that under Section 14 of the regulation the government should notify an oversight board for each of the internment centre comprising two civilians and two military officers to review the case of each person interned within a period not exceeding 120 days from the issuance of the order of internment, and prepare a report for consideration of the government. However, he added that while internees had been interned for last many years still in most of the cases the reports of oversight boards were yet to be sent to the government.

Experts believe that the authorities should at least set free those suspects who were declared “white” by them whereas cases of those placed in the category “grey” should be referred to the relevant courts for trial.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2015