New Delhi, December 13, 2013 : .Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah expressed dismay at enforced disappearances and said that “chief executives” were ultimately responsible for the acts.
Dawn also reported that Minallah wondered at one point if the Constitution’s Article 6 (high treason) should have been used to charge them.
These remarks were made by Justice Minallah during an interaction with Khalid Jawed Khan, Attorney General Pakistania.
They were hearing the petition of Mudassar Naaru’s family.
The IHC Chief Justice called enforced disappearedances “stain on Pakistan” in Monday’s hearing.
Dawn reports that he also noted how former chief executives take pride in this practice and write about it in their books.
“Had there been a state, would the family be able to go to court and would they need to notify the Prime Minister?” the chief justice questioned.
In August 2018, Naaru went on vacation to the Kaghan valley, but has since been missing.He was last spotted near the Kaghan river.
Initially, his family and friends thought that he may have accidentally fallen into the river and drowned, but his body was never found.Others began speculating that Naaru may have killed himself — a claim instantly rejected by the family, saying he had no signs of despair, the report said.
His family subsequently tried to register a first information report against “unidentified persons”.When the police refused to cooperate, they were forced to approach civil rights organisations but to no avail.
A few months following his disappearance, one of his friends said he had spotted Naaru at a detention centre for “missing persons”.
In a previous hearing of the case, it had been asserted that Naaru, who was also a social activist and human rights defender, had been receiving threats allegedly from officials of state institutions before he went missing.
san/d
#Islamabad #enced #stain #Pakistan #Delhi #Delhi #New Delhi
