ISLAMABAD: A special meeting convened by Attorney General Muneer A. Malik on Thursday decided to develop a database as a first step to identify duplications which will eventually help in finding out the whereabouts of persons said to be missing for quite some time.
The meeting was attended by Defence Secretary retired Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, the law secretary and representatives of law officers of the four provinces.
A source privy to the meeting told Dawn that the participants had agreed that emotive and chronic cases of enforced disappearances needed to be handled carefully keeping in view the requirements of national security as well as fundamental rights of citizens enshrined in the constitution.The meeting was held against the backdrop of conflicting information about the missing persons during the hearing in the Supreme Court on a daily basis.
At the last hearing on Monday, the attorney general had stressed the need for a database to be shared by high courts, the Supreme Court and the human rights commissions. He said the issue of missing persons could be divided into four categories 151 the first where direct evidence is available; the second where circumstantial evidences are available; the third where there is no clue or evidence; and the fourth where disappearances are not enforced.
The source said the database would help determine the actual number of missing persons since every agency or organisation involved in the case being heard by the apex court had different figures and identities.
The meeting decided to ask advocates general of the four provinces to submit complete lists of missing persons they had to the office of the attorney general.
The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) headed by retired Justice Javed Iqbal and the attorney general146s office will also submit their lists of missing persons.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will be asked to submit a complete list of people detained in internment centres set up in Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Landi Kotal and Parachinar in the Kurram Agency.
The internment centres were set up under the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulations 2011 which allows the civil government to confine people accused of terrorism.
Former attorney general Irfan Qadir had admitted before the Supreme Court On Jan 24 that about 700 suspected terrorists were in the custody of the government under the 2011 regulations.
Meanwhile, a three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja hinted at constituting a commission comprising members of civil society, including Defence for Human Rights chairperson Amina Masood Janjua, to visit the internment centres and examine the condition of the inmates.
The bench said that a simple statement by intelligence agencies that they did not have the custody of a particular person would no longer be acceptable by the court. The days are gone when courts used to accept the denial by the spy agencies about the custody of certain disappeared persons, it said.
The court ordered Deputy Attorney General Dil Mohammad Aliza to identify the officials of the armed forces who were not abiding by the directives of the court or the CIED so that the court could proceed against them.
The court made it clear that it was exercising judicial restraint in the missing persons146 case because the new government was sensitive to the matter and wanted to resolve it as soon as possible
A source privy to the meeting told Dawn that the participants had agreed that emotive and chronic cases of enforced disappearances needed to be handled carefully keeping in view the requirements of national security as well as fundamental rights of citizens enshrined in the constitution.The meeting was held against the backdrop of conflicting information about the missing persons during the hearing in the Supreme Court on a daily basis.
At the last hearing on Monday, the attorney general had stressed the need for a database to be shared by high courts, the Supreme Court and the human rights commissions. He said the issue of missing persons could be divided into four categories 151 the first where direct evidence is available; the second where circumstantial evidences are available; the third where there is no clue or evidence; and the fourth where disappearances are not enforced.
The source said the database would help determine the actual number of missing persons since every agency or organisation involved in the case being heard by the apex court had different figures and identities.
The meeting decided to ask advocates general of the four provinces to submit complete lists of missing persons they had to the office of the attorney general.
The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) headed by retired Justice Javed Iqbal and the attorney general146s office will also submit their lists of missing persons.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will be asked to submit a complete list of people detained in internment centres set up in Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Landi Kotal and Parachinar in the Kurram Agency.
The internment centres were set up under the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulations 2011 which allows the civil government to confine people accused of terrorism.
Former attorney general Irfan Qadir had admitted before the Supreme Court On Jan 24 that about 700 suspected terrorists were in the custody of the government under the 2011 regulations.
Meanwhile, a three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja hinted at constituting a commission comprising members of civil society, including Defence for Human Rights chairperson Amina Masood Janjua, to visit the internment centres and examine the condition of the inmates.
The bench said that a simple statement by intelligence agencies that they did not have the custody of a particular person would no longer be acceptable by the court. The days are gone when courts used to accept the denial by the spy agencies about the custody of certain disappeared persons, it said.
The court ordered Deputy Attorney General Dil Mohammad Aliza to identify the officials of the armed forces who were not abiding by the directives of the court or the CIED so that the court could proceed against them.
The court made it clear that it was exercising judicial restraint in the missing persons146 case because the new government was sensitive to the matter and wanted to resolve it as soon as possible
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