Sindh HC orders setting up of Task Force to tackle cases of enforced disappearances
Jan 20, 2022
Sindh [Pakistan], January 20 : The Sindh High Court on Wednesday took a dim view of the way the police work in missing person's cases and deplored that only stereotype reports were filed without any substantial progress.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the system, it directed the provincial authorities to constitute an enforced disappearance task force to solely focus on such missing cases.
A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro said that the task force must have officers not below the rank of DSP in every district of the metropolis for recovery of the missing persons, reported DAWN.
Notably, in the case of a man, who went missing in 2012, the bench noted that several sessions of the Provincial Task Force and a Joint Investigation Team for Missing Persons had been held, but there was no clue of the man.
The bench heard similar sort of petitions in which it found that senior police officers filed reports with the same statement "despite efforts nothing could be found about the missing person".
"This is not helpful in any way on the one hand and on other hand their time for other official work is being compromised," it said.
The bench directed an additional advocate general to meet with the chief secretary (CS) and the inspector general of police for setting up the task force, reported the newspaper.
