Onus of enforced disappearance ultimately lies on PM, cabinet: IHC

Amid continuing scrutiny over the issue of missing persons and enforced disappearances, Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb has said that the prime minister and his cabinet are responsible for any person that goes “missing”. “The ultimate responsibility is on the shoulders of the personages at the helm of affairs in the government, which under our Constitution are the prime minister and the [federal] cabinet,” Justice Aurangzeb said in an order issued on Friday in a case involving the disappearance of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr Shahbaz Gill’s brother Ghulam Shabbir. The issue of missing persons and enforced disappearances has come under the spotlight on various occasions with various sections of society and human rights organisations expressing their concerns. A day earlier, the incumbent government announced a package worth Rs5 million for each family as part of its efforts to provide legal and financial assistance to the heirs of missing persons. Briefing the media on the decisions taken in the federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz, Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar revealed that the cabinet also approved the constitution of a special committee to examine genuine cases of families in need of support after reviewing the final report of the committees. Last month, Tarar had claimed that “only 23% of missing persons’ cases are pending”, adding that 10,200 cases of missing persons were registered in the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED) out of which around 8,000 were duly addressed. In its report presented in January this year, the Missing Persons Inquiry Commission said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported 3,485 cases of missing persons, making it the highest number in the country. Causalities in drone attacks and the spike in militancy were the key reasons behind the disappearances, as per the report. In Balochistan, 2,752 cases related to enforced disappearance were lodged, the commission had said, adding that besides other reasons, fleeing abroad without informing their families, due to the prevailing situation in the province, was among the causes of these cases. Even now, the protesters of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) are staging demonstrations in various areas across the country’s largest province. The case at hand involves Shabbir, who as per the court order, went missing between the night of June 8 and 9 while he was on his way to Islamabad from Lahore. A writ petition was filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking his recovery but was later withdrawn on information that he was in fact present in Islamabad instead. Later, another plea, seeking Shabbir’s recovery, was filed in the IHC last month. “Now if we give a strict order, action starts against judges. Earlier, the SHO was asked to pick up someone, now it is done according to the policy of the Government of Pakistan,” Justice Aurangzeb had remarked while hearing the case on Friday as reported by The News. In his order, the judge recalled that the assistant attorney-general along with representatives of the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and others, said that government officials have expressed their lack of knowledge of the detainee’s whereabouts in their submission. “This court has consistently expressed its grave concern over the disappearance of citizens [in Pakistan]. Such occurrences are detrimental to the development of democracy and fundamentally contradict the injunctions of Islam They instil fear among the general public and create the impression of a Gestapo state, particularly when the victims are political opponents of the Government in power,” he said. He also said that the state’s lack of knowledge of a person coupled with the absence of steps taken for his recovery means that “it is a case of enforced disappearance”. The IHC judge also highlighted that the LHC order seeking a report on Shabbir’s disappearance from the Punjab AG and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) was not adhered to and fulfilled. The order has directed the court’s registrar to send a copy of it to the principal secretary of the PM, whereas the secretary of the Interior Ministry has been told to take all necessary measures to ensure that the detainee is produced before the IHC on August 6.