Daily Times

KARACHI: While expressing grave concern over joint investigation teams (JITs) set up to trace out the whereabouts of missing persons for largely being inconclusive, the Sindh High Court has directed them to carry out investigations with application of mind.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui was hearing the petition fled by Naz Bibi seeking whereabouts of her son Abdul Rehman.

The judges reprimanded the JIT for being inconclusive and observed that so far three sessions of the JIT were held, however, there was no progress in the case.

The court was informed that letters were written to Inter-services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI), Intelligence Bureau (IB) and FIA seeking information about the missing petitioner’s son, but they are yet to respond.

The court asked the investigators to write to all internment centers and make further investigations into the matter.

Petitioner Naz Bibi alleged that the paramilitary troopers had picked up her son from outside her home in Lyari and did not disclose his whereabouts.

The same bench while hearing a missing student’s case observed, “Surprisingly, the JIT in its first session opined that this case does not fall into any of four categories – kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping due to personal enmity, missing person has gone underground on his own, or enforced disappearance.”

The bench had taken up the petition filed by Rozeena Rizwan seeking whereabouts of her 23-year old missing son, who was a student of media sciences department at Bahria University.

The judges went on to observe that they do not find any head and tail as far as the above opinion and conclusion is concerned.

The court directed the investigating officers to carry out further investigation and ascertain as to where the missing student had gone.

The petitioner submitted that her son Bilal Rizwan was missing since November 4, 2015 as there was no clue to his whereabouts since then. She pleaded the judges to direct the law enforcement agencies to recover his son and produce him in court.

Meanwhile, the court directed cellular companies to devise a mechanism to provide cell phone data to investigating officers in missing persons’ cases.

The judges observed that, “We understand that such information cannot be given to IO s at their request but when the matters comes into court and investigation is being carried out we deem it appropriate that a prompted and immediate reply be given by these cellular companies.”

The court was hearing the petition filed by Fariza Sarfraz seeking whereabouts f her spouse Syed Sarfraz Ali, who was missing since Jan 2016.

Earlier, the judges had expressed displeasure over the cellular companies for not timely responding to the requests of investigation officers for provision cellphone data. They observed that a letter was written to the cellular companies on April 05 but they failed to answer.

The court also took notice of the companies’ belated response saying that call data of at least three months is required, however, delayed response risk losing chance of locating whereabouts of the missing men.