HYDERABAD, Dec 22: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Thursday directed police officers to make concerted efforts to trace out the whereabouts of a missing activist of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), Sikandar alias Akash Mallah and submit a report on or before the next date of hearing.

Akash Mallah and another JSQM activist Manjhi Chandio had allegedly been picked up by police personnel on May 16. Mr Chandio was later released by his captors on August 11 but Mr Mallah has been missing since then.

The division bench comprising Justice Mohammad Moosa K. Leghari and Justice Maqbool Baqar kept on record the progress report of DIG of police (operations) Mazhar Shaikh submitted by Sindh Additional Advocate General (AAG) Masood A. Noorani which once again claimed police were making concerted efforts to trace out missing people.

Earlier on December 9 the same bench had expressed dissatisfaction over a report submitted by DIG of CID Syed Zubair Mehmood about the whereabouts of Mallah and adjourned the case to December 21.

The DIG said in the report that despite best efforts whereabouts of Akash Mallah could not be traced and the police were still on his lookout. A special team consisting of experienced and selected officers under supervision of Additional IG police with CCPO Karachi, regional police officers (RPOs) of Sukkur and Hyderabad regions and DIG of CID had pooled resources to find them out, the report said.

The report referred to Abdul Rauf Sasoli, Brahim Saleh, Saleem Baloch and Saeed Brohi, some of the missing men, who had resurfaced lately. A report would be submitted to the court in case of any progress, he added.

The report was submitted in answer to the court’s order on a constitutional petition filed on December 6 by Imran Mallah, nephew of Akash Mallah and Sher Ali, brother of Manjhi Chandio, which requested the court order production of the two JSQM activists in court along with a list of cases pending against them.

The petition said that Akash Mallah was a government A-class contractor while Manjhi Chandio was sub-editor at a daily Sindhi newspaper and they both were activists of JSQM. It said that Mr Mallah and Chandio were present in Chandio Goth of Bhittai Nagar on May 16 when four people tried to kidnap them at gunpoint. When they put up resistance and other people intervened, they fired in the air and fled, the petition said.

Mr Chandio who was dropped by his captors on August 11 near Naseem Nagar Chowk later told the court that immediately after the foiled kidnap attempt the DPO of Hyderabad, TPO of Qasimabad and SHO of Bhittai Nagar arrived there and took them away blindfolded in the DPO’s jeep.

The petitioners added that DPO of Hyderabad was seen moving the two in a white coloured Khyber car inside cantonment area. They had thereafter inquired the DPO of their relative who assured them that they would soon be produced before a magistrate.

The DPO had in his earlier statement to court called Mr Manjhi an absconder and denied having picked up the activists or handed them over to any military agency.