Govt reconstitutes committee on missing persons

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government on Wednesday reconstituted the committee on missing persons and handed over its chairmanship to the interim law minister, ARY News reported citing sources.

Earlier, the caretaker interior minister was its head.

The government committee on enforced disappearances became inactive after the resignation of Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti.

The committee will include the caretaker human rights minister, defence minister and culture minister as members and the committee will present its recommendations to federal cabinet.

It may be noted that a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa has been set up in the Supreme Court for the case against missing persons. The bench includes Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarat Hilali. Aitzaz Ahsan and others had filed petitions in the Supreme Court.

Seperately this week, the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday declared the report submitted by police in missing persons cases ‘unsatisfactory’ and directed the interior secretary to intervene in the matter.

A single bench of Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto heard the cases related to more than 10 missing persons.

At the outset of the hearing, Justice Phulpoto observed the authorities were given a month for the recovery of the missing persons. “What steps were taken in the said period,” the SHC bench asked while terming the police reports ‘unsatisfactory’.

Letters were penned to various state institutions in the cases, but no response has been received yet, the investigation officer (IO) informed the court.