The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday directed the Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) DIG to appear before the court and submit a progress report with regard to the recovery of 14 children who went missing from different parts of the city.
Hearing a petition for the recovery of the missing children, a division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto inquired a provincial law officer about efforts that had been made for the recovery of the missing children and expressed concern lest those children were being used in illegal activities.
A provincial law officer filed a progress report on behalf of the Sindh inspector general of police mentioning that all the SSPs concerned had been directed to trace the whereabouts of the missing children. The Special Investigation Unit SSP submitted in a progress report that some clues were found with regard to missing infant Nida. He said efforts were under way to trace the culprits involved in the kidnapping of the baby girl. The SHC observed that the petition had been pending since 2012 and police were yet to find the missing children mentioned in the petition.
The high court took exception to the delay in the investigation and directed the Khairpur SSP and Shikarpur SSP to make all possible efforts for the recovery of Nida. The bench directed the CIA DIG to appear before the court along with a progress report by March 8.
The high court also directed police to use modern techniques to ensure that the missing kids were recovered. The court had earlier directed the Sindh police chief to form a committee headed by a DIG-level officer to work for the recovery of the missing children.
The SHC was informed that eight women police stations had been re-designated as children and women police stations and the relevant SSPs had been directed to establish child protection desks in their respective districts to provide urgent response in the missing children cases.
The bench was told that instructions had been issued to all the SHOs for the registration of cases with regard to the missing children. The petitioner, Roshni Helpline Trust, had approached the high court, asking it to issue directives to the police that missing children’s cases be considered a cognisable offence and investigation should be initiated without any delay. The counsel for the petitioner had submitted that the whereabouts of 24 children were still unknown and requested the high court to direct the police to recover them.
Show-cause notice
Meanwhile, the SHC issued a show-cause notice to the interior secretary for not complying with the court order in a missing person case.
Hearing a petition against the detention of Syed Ali Mehdi Naqvi, who has been missing since 2018, a division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto observed that the court had directed the interior secretary to file comments on the petition as the petitioner had levelled allegations against personnel of law enforcement agencies regarding the abduction of Naqvi.
An assistant attorney general informed the SHC that he had not received any report from the ministry of interior, to which the bench observed that the interior secretary had prima facie deliberately not complied with the court orders.
The high court issued a show-cause notice to the interior secretary, telling him to explain why compliance with the court orders did not happen, and adjourned the hearing till March 8. The bench also directed the joint investigation team and provincial task force to file progress reports with regard to the recovery of missing persons on the next hearing.
Contempt plea
The SHC has adjourned the hearing of a contempt application against the chief secretary, special home secretary and jail officials filed by Ahmed Omer Sheikh and others for not releasing them in violation of the court orders.
The hearing was adjourned till February 16 after the high court was informed that the Supreme Court (SC) had already issued orders with regard to shifting of the applicants from the prison.
The SHC was informed by a provincial law officer that the SC had ordered shifting of Sheikh from the prison to a safe rest house with proper security arrangements and the home department shall comply with the orders of the court. The high court dispensed with the attendance of the home secretary till further orders but directed all the other alleged contemnors to appear before the court on the next hearing.
The SHC on December 24 had struck down the nine-month-long preventive detention of British-nationality-holder Sheikh and three others after their acquittal in the kidnapping and murder case of US journalist Daniel Pearl by the appellate court. Sheikh had challenged his detention under the Maintenance of Public Order for three months and later preventive detention under the Anti-Terrorism Law.
The petitioner’s counsel, Nadeem Azar, filed a contempt of court application submitting that the SHC had turned down the preventive detention order and directed the prison authorities of Karachi and Sukkur to release the detained men with immediate effect but police told him that the chief secretary and additional chief secretary home directed them not to release the petitioners.
