On Wednesday, the caretaker government reconstituted the committee on missing persons and handed over its chairmanship to the interim law minister. A private TV channel reported on Wednesday, 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, defense minister, and culture minister as members, and will present its recommendations to the federal cabinet.
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.
Separately this week, on Tuesday, the Sindh High Court (SHC) declared the report submitted by police in missing person cases’ unsatisfactory’ and directed the interior secretary to intervene. A single bench of Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto heard the cases related to more than ten missing persons.
At the outset of the hearing, Justice Phulpoto observed that the authorities were given a chance to recover 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. Still, no response has yet to be received, and the investigation officer (IO) informed the court.
