'Officials summoned in missing persons case'

Islamabad, Apr 21: The Pakistan Supreme Court has summoned top officials in connection with alleged custodial disappearances after the law officer for the government complained that the officials concerned were not fulfilling assurances they made to the apex court.

A division bench, headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, yesterday directed the Defence and Interior secretaries and the Director General of the Crisis Management Cell (CMC) to appear in court on April 27. The order came after Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Raja Irshad said he could not assist the court anymore since CMC DG Brig (retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema had not fulfilled the assurance he had given to the SC at the last hearing, of submitting a comprehensive statement on each complaint and petition on the missing people.

The apex court was hearing petitions by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) former Senator Farhatullah Babar along with complaints by Amina Masood Janjua, Saqlain Mehdi and others.

The bunch of petitions relate to the disappearance of various people who have been allegedly taken into custody by intelligence agencies. The HRCP petition deals with 141 missing persons, most of them from Balochistan.

Mr Babar urged the court to question the government under which law the intelligence agencies operated so that the issue of disappeared citizens could be examined in its correct perspective.

He said Parliament had been denied even a copy of the law, leave alone its right to make and improve the legislation governing the intelligence agencies.

HRCP Chairwoman Asma Jehangir suggested that all the intelligence services be summoned in court. The bench ruled that the heads of the intelligence agencies would be summoned in court, if needed.

Amina Masood said Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had directed the representatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence (MI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in December to appear in court and respond to complaints against them, but there had been no development so far.

Justice Iqbal said the issue was sensitive and the court was examining it very seriously. He said it would be wrong to say that there was no development in the case because some missing people had been found.

UNI