The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday said intelligence officials would be summoned if officials fail to recover a “missing person” by Wednesday (today).
The court issued the directives while hearing a petition for the recovery of Haseeb Hamza, who reportedly went “missing” in August.
The IHC instructed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and Chief Commissioner to produce the missing citizen Haseeb Hamza by Wednesday 11:30 am after recovering him. The chief justice remarked that the citizen was lifted from this court’s jurisdiction and it would summon every responsible and held them accountable if the chief commissioner ICT and IGP failed to produce the citizen.
Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the case filed by Zulifqar Ali, the father of the missing citizen.
The petitioner’s lawyer adopted the stance that Hamza was lifted on August 22, by the unknown people in uniform. The police registered an FIR on the complaint but couldn’t recover him so far, he said.
The court held a recession and summoned IGP Akbar Nasir who appeared before it as the hearing resumed. The IGP said that the FIR was registered on last day about the missing citizen.
The court said that this practice couldn’t be tolerated, adding that it had already given a judgment in missing persons’ case and the court would move according to it. Expressing concern, the court noted that the incident was taken place on August 22, but the FIR was registered on September 12.
The court also summoned the officials of sensitive institutions in personal capacity along with the Chief Commissioner ICT and IGP on Wednesday.
The chief justice remarked that legal action should have been taken against the citizen if he had committed any offence. After this, the hearing of the case was adjourned till Wednesday 11:30 am.
In the petition, petitioner Zulfiqar Ali said his 27-year-old son Hamza was a farmer and was working in Layyah. On the midnight of August 22 and 23, around 20 persons – 15 of whom were in black uniform – raided the petitioner’s house without any search warrant, the plea said. During the search, they apprehended the petitioner’s son, and seized several items, including five laptops, six cellphones and some documents. “The circumstances suggest that the detenu is a victim of state-enforced disappearance. The petitioner ran pillar to post for the search of his son, however, no information [was] received from any corner of state organs,” the petition said.
The petition urged the court to direct the respondents to produce the detenu before the court.
It also asked the court to identify and investigate those responsible, directly or indirectly, for abducting and illegally detaining the detenu while also prosecuting those responsible.
