ISLAMABAD - Advocate General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tuesday produced five out of 35 undeclared detainees before a single-judge bench of the Supreme Court.
They were brought amid tight security in two Hiace vans at around 01:00 pm where Justice Ejaz Afzal heard them in-camera in the Court No 2 for about two hours. KP Advocate General Latif Yousafzai and the Additional Attorney General were also present during the hearing.
The sources told The Nation the missing persons produced were Naeem-ur-Rehman, Zakir Ullah, Mohammad Hashim, Ejaz Mehmood and Muhammad Saleh. Besides missing persons, their relatives were also brought from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for identifying them.
The KP administration so far had produced 11 persons, while the Supreme Court had directed the authorities to produce all the 35 undeclared detainees including Yasin Shah. On December 6, 2013 the authorities had produced six undeclared internees and their relatives, amid tight security, before Justice Amir Hani Muslim.
Last year in December, Federal Minister for Defence Khawaja Asif, who also holds the portfolio of Ministry of Water and Power, had told the court there were different categories of the 35 detainees, out of them seven are free and could be produced in the security, two are in the internment centre, one has gone to Saudi Arabia, two have died of natural death, there are five persons whose detail is incomplete, but would be firmed up in a few days, three persons are in the North and South Waziristan, eight have crossed the border and are now in Kunar province of Afghanistan.
Atta Ullah, Superintendent judicial lockup Malakand Division, in a statement before the Peshawar High Court last year had alleged that an army officer took 35 persons including Yasin Shah from his custody in February 2012.
Justice (Retd) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, a day before his retirement, had passed a judgement directing Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to recover all the undeclared internees within a week and proceed against those involved in the enforced disappearances.
The judgment also stated: “There is no law or authority to authorize any agency like Military Intelligence (MI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Frontier Constabulary (FC) to detain anyone illegally.”