PESHAWAR, Sept 27: A two-member Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police officer to form a team of experts to investigate the recovery of 26 human bodies in gunny sacks in the provincial capital and adjoining areas over the last few weeks.

The PPO was also told to engage investigators from other law-enforcement and intelligence agencies for the purpose if a need arises.

The directions were issued after Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth doubted a police report, which declared that several of the people, whose bodies were found in gunny sacks, died of starvation.

Senior superintendent of police (investigation) Sajid Khan Mohmand submitted the report.

The bench doubted the report and observed that the relevant doctors might have mentioned the false cause of death due to pressure from certain quarters.

The SSP said doctors meant that the captors might have kept these persons starved causing their deaths.

The chief justice asked him about the culpable people, but he said he couldn’t say anything in this respect as investigations were still on.

The bench directed the provincial director general (health services) to form a team to interrogate all doctors, who attributed the said deaths to starvation, observing that the given cause seemed to be unbelievable.

It also issued directions for the location of legal heirs of the people, whose bodies had been found, by all means and the recording of their statements before the judicial magistrate.

The bench observed that the magistrate was also empowered under Section 176 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to look into the cause of death in such like cases independent of the police probe team.

Later, the bench ordered the federal government to strictly order all intelligence agencies managed and controlled by it to be part of the said probe team if police wanted so.

“The provincial police officer is directed that he along with the AIG (investigation) shall constitute a team of expert investigators in all these cases, which shall be headed by the SP of Crimes Branch and shall include at least two DSPs and one inspector, and if need be, representatives of other agencies be also included,” read the court order.

The bench asked federal and provincial governments to produce ‘concrete results’ on the matter in any case before the next hearing on Nov 6.

The court also said: “The order shall not be taken lightly because if both the governments fail to perform their constitutional obligation, the order to be passed in future will land both of them in serious trouble.”

The high court’s human rights cell had referred the matter to the chief justice last month after newspapers reported that 16 bodies were dumped in Peshawar’s different areas and adjoining areas.

At the very outset of the hearing on Thursday, the chief justice asked additional advocate general Naveed Akhter about steps taken by government in compliance with the court’s earlier orders to trace the people behind the dumping of human bodies.

Mr Akhter said provincial home secretary Azam Khan chaired a meeting a day ago on the matter where representatives of Frontier Corps, Frontier Constabulary, Peshawar police, commissioners, district coordination officers and political agents were in attendance.

He said participants agreed that their decisions would not be confined to settled areas and such incidents in tribal areas would also be examined.

The AAG said every incident of the dumping of bodies would be reported to the home department without delay for proper investigation.

SSP Sajid Khan told the court that police had registered FIRs in all these cases and had been investigating them.

When asked by the court about the use of closed circuit television cameras, he said recently, it was brought to the police’s knowledge that several of CCTV cameras were broken.

A standing counsel for the federal government, Jamil Warsak, told the bench that after the passage of Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, law and order was a provincial subject.

The chief justice asked him why the federal minister had regularly been issuing statements about terrorist incidents occurred in a province when it was a provincial subject.

The chief justice told the counsel for the federal and provincial governments that their clients should understand the gravity of the matter and inform the relevant quarters that the court was taking it seriously.

He observed that if a government couldn’t protect the people’s life, a constitutional requirement, then it lost the right to be there.

The chief justice said missing person Naveedur Rehman’s body was handed over to his family by police after the court took up the case.

He added that Mr Rehman’s family suspected that law-enforcement agencies might have killed the man in custody.

The chief justice said the court would definitely take notice of all such cases for necessary action in line with the law and the Constitution.