KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday expressed resentment over the provincial task force (PTF) on missing persons for not producing any meaningful result and asked the chief minister to make it an effective body.

The two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha also directed the provincial home secretary, provincial law officer and the additional inspector general of police to sit together, go through the previous orders of the court about missing persons and appear in person along with the compliance report on Oct 9.

The bench was hearing a petition seeking the recovery of a missing person who was allegedly picked up by police in 2016 in district Nawabshah.

On the last hearing, the home secretary contended that the missing person in question had died in 2005 due to hepatitis in a hospital in Nawabshah. Thereafter, the court asked him to provide the copy of his report to the investigating officer of the case and directed the IO to produce the death certificate of missing person Abdul Jabbar.

Asks CM to make it meaningful in order to trace out missing persons

When the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, the IO failed to produce the death certificate and the court issued him a show-cause notice.

The bench observed that its April 10 order had also not been complied with by the home secretary adding that the purpose of the order was to find out whether the recommendations of the PTF, which were given in stereotype manner, would actually be of any value in tracing out any of the missing persons.

The home secretary was present during Wednesday’s proceedings and responding to a court’s query, he said that one of the recommendations was to use lie-detection machines, but conceded that no such machine was available in Karachi.

The bench in its order further said that he also had no clue regarding the manual and guidelines which were meant to be given to the investigating officers while the IO of the case also said that he had no guidelines.

It observed that apparently, the recommendations being made by the PTF were of little, if any, practical assistance and simply eyewash, which was of great disappointment for the families of missing persons since they put their trust on the PTF as a higher forum to trace out their loved ones.

“This court is also very disturbed to see that PTF guidelines in practice are extremely unlikely to produce any meaningful result”, it said and directed the home secretary, advocate general of Sindh and an additional IG of police to sit together for the compliance of previous orders of the court and come up with report at the next hearing.

The court also directed its office to send the copy of this order to the chief minister, as he is also holding the charge of home minister, with a view to making the PTF a meaningful and effective body which can give manageable and meaningful recommendations that may lead to tracing out missing persons.

Mir Dost had petitioned the SHC in 2016 and contended that police picked up his son Abdul Jabbar and brother Saeed Khan in October 2016 from their home in Nawabshah.

However, the petitioner argued that police did not produce his son before the court and demanded money against his release, adding that since then the whereabouts of his son remained unknown.

Baldia factory fire case

Another division bench of the SHC on Wednesday directed both sides to advance arguments on a petition of one of the accused in the Baldia factory case.

Abdul Rehman, alias Bhola, through his lawyer challenged the order of the trial court which allowed an application of prosecution for recording testimonies of the factory’s owners through a video link due to security concerns.

A deputy attorney general argued that the petition was liable to be dismissed since there were precedents set by the apex court of recording testimonies through video link. The bench directed both sides to advance remaining arguments on Sept 13.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2019