KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the police to appoint a senior officer to further probe the case of a missing person while his family has refused to accept the offer of financial assistant being provided by the provincial government to the families of those missing persons categorised as victims of “enforced disappearance.”

Najma Tahir had petitioned the SHC and submitted that personnel of law enforcement agencies had raided her house in North Nazimabad in February 2015 and detained her husband Mohammad Tahir Rehan.

When a two-judge bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, took the matter for hearing and heard the petitioner, a son of the missing person also turned up and submitted that there was no clue regarding whereabouts of his father.

The investigating officer submitted a progress report about the efforts being made to locate the whereabouts of the missing person.

The bench noted that apparently, fresh letters have been written to various law enforcement agencies yet replies were awaited while the case was also discussed before the provincial taskforce (PTF) for missing persons held on Aug 29.

The PTF has directed the IO to collect fresh travel history, publication of photographs of the missing person on public places and newspapers and to collect replies from inspector general prisons and other law enforcement agencies, it added and ordered the IO to carry out all such directions.

“Looking to the peculiar circumstances and keeping in view that liberty of the person is involved, after hearing learned counsel for the parties, it is ordered that further investigation shall be entrusted to an officer not below the rank of SP. Appropriate orders in this regard shall be passed by DIG Investigation concerned”, the bench in its order said.

During the hearing, a provincial law officer informed the bench that financial support for the family of the missing person has been approved.

However, the son of missing person expressed displeasure over such statement and said that they were seeking recovery of his father, not financial assistance. “We are paying more taxes than the financial assistance being offered by the government to families of missing persons”, he claimed.

While adjourning the hearing till Oct 15, the bench directed the PTF as well as a joint investigation team for missing persons to again take up this case before next hearing.

The petitioner had approached the SHC in 2016 and submitted that initially, her husband was picked up in February 2015.

She further argued that a petition was also filed in 2015 about the recovery of her spouse, but he was shown arrested in a case and later, the trial court issued his release order.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2024