Tanwir Ahmad and his family were terribly worried as Tanwir’s brother Moin could not be traced despite a hectic search for about four months. The family who lived in Lyari, Karachi was gradually beginning to accept the loss of their beloved but something kept pinching their hearts; as one of his family members said later, “Had he died in front of us, it would have been easier to accept his death, but the very thought that he may be alive bothered us.”
On Dec 22 last year, Tanwir received a call from the Edhi morgue asking him to come over and identify a dead body. With a heavy heart he rushed to the morgue and was in tears to find the body of his brother, who had died of a gun shot. But then he was also relieved of the pain and agony he and his family had been going through for the past four months.
The morgue had received his body on Dec 17 and with the help of Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), his thumb impression had been forwarded to NADRA; after receiving his details, the CPLC contacted the family members and the body was handed over to the legal heirs after completing the formalities.
We all have heard such stories. Edhi and other welfare organisations are now happy that they don’t have to wait for a week in the hope that somebody may come on his own and identify and claim a dead body lying in their morgue. With a new CPLC-led project in place, it is now possible to trace the family members of the deceased and inform them.
A new CPLC-led project is in place now which to help trace family members of the deceased and to inform them
The CPLC alone, however, could not do the job. Nobody can. It was in collaboration with the morgues manned by local welfare organisations that a project called Shanakht for the identification of unknown dead bodies was launched. Under this project the unidentified dead bodies are being identified through biometric scan technology by utilising the NADRA databank.
A special desk has been established by the CPLC at the Edhi morgue and other morgues for carrying out a great task in collaboration with the officials of the morgue.
In February 2015, the Supreme Court’s two-judge bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja while hearing the application filed by Voice for Baloch Missing Persons chairman Nasrullah Baloch observed “There should be an effective mechanism so that whenever a dead body is found, the relatives of the missing persons should be contacted to identify it.”