LAHORE- The family of Farhad Shah of Rawalpindi is filing a petition in the Lahore High Court seeking to be a part of the Justice Project Pakistan’s (JPP) ongoing petition on the Bagram detainees, a legal aid group said Monday.
Farhad Ali Shah, son of Muzafar Ali Shah was an 18 years old student when he disappeared in 2006. After Frahad’s disappearance, Farhad’s father who ran a school in Rawalpindi, had to close down his school to go look for Farhad.
In their search, Farhad’s family approached all relevant local and international authorities. In 2009 they wrote a letter to then Chief Justice Supreme Court of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, bring to his attention Farhad’s continued disappearance. In 2011 Farhad’s family approached the Commission of Inquiry on Forced Disappearance, but no information on his whereabouts was received.
In 2011 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a list of names of third-country nationals (TCNs) detained at Bagram Prison, Afghanistan. Farhad Shah’s name was in that list. However, subsequent lists of Bagram detainees released by the Pakistan government did not mention Farhad’s name in them, the Justice Project Pakistan said.
Justice Project Pakistan, in its ongoing case in the LHC on the Bagram detainees, has stressed the need for updated lists of Pakistanis in detention in Bagram Prison from the Pakistan government. To this day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has failed to provide such a list in court, despite court directions in April this year.
Sarah Belal, Executive Director Justice Project Pakistan said: “This is yet another instance of the Pakistan government’s negligence in ongoing illegal detention of Pakistanis under U.S. custody and their constant failure to ensure the materialization of their fundamental and constitutional rights. And this failure increase the likelihood that they will fall through the cracks and disappear.”