ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the last chance of two weeks to the government for furnishing a comprehensive report regarding the whereabouts of missing persons and ruled that the court would decide the case during the current month.

The court directed the government to submit a detailed report by March 18 on the individual and collective petitions filed in the apex court concerning the whereabouts of the missing persons.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, was hearing petitions of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and former Pakistan People’s Party senator Farhatullah Babar and many other individual complaints, filed by the relatives of the missing persons.

Justice Javed said the court would deliver the verdict on the case during the current month after the last hearing of the case. “The law will take its course irrespective of who is who,” he remarked, adding that the case would be decided once and for all and directed the government to seriously concentrate on the issue.

The missing persons have allegedly been taken away by Pakistani intelligence agencies for interrogation over alleged links to the Balochistan militants and other militant groups in the country.

Their relatives claimed that they were picked by the intelligence agencies but never produced in any court of law. The court also directed Sajjad Kamran, Director General Afghanistan Desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to appear before it on March 18 and submit a report about the Pakistani nationals languishing in the Bagram Jail, Afghanistan.

Amina Masood Janjua, one of the petitioners and spouse of missing Masood Janjua, told the court that there were 31 Pakistani nationals in different jails of Afghanistan, adding that 16 were confirmed detained in the Bagram Jail.

The court directed the federal secretaries of Interior, Foreign and Defence to appear before the court on March 18 and give final arguments for their efforts made so far for tracing the whereabouts of the missing persons.

During the course of the hearing, Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar presented a list of at least 6,000 Pakistanis jailed in 11 countries. At this, the court inquired as to why 120 Pakistanis jailed in Thailand had not been included in the list.

Shah Khawar replied that the prime minister was going to constitute a commission in this regard. The court directed the deputy attorney general to inform the court about the nature and strategy of the commission that would work to trace the whereabouts of the missing persons.

The court also directed the joint investigation team to submit within two weeks a report on Masud Janjua, Faisal Faraz, Saeedur Rehman, Ateequr Rehman, Muhammad Ata and Muhammad Altaf, who were among the missing persons.

SP Kamran Adil, Chief of the Joint Investigation Team, informed the court that the investigation process was advancing with complete support from the military. The court took up individual cases of missing persons and directed the government to complete the investigation and file a detailed report on the progress on the next date and adjourned the hearing till March 18.

According to the government’s finding presented before the court last week, about 1,600 persons went missing till 2008. Of these, 1,300 went missing after the killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 and after the military operation launched against the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in 2007.

The list of HRCP, prepared in 2007, indicated that there were 198 people missing of which 99 were traced out while 99 were still missing. Earlier Hashmat Habib, counsel for Dr Aafia Siddiqui, told the court that she could be released from the US court as all the facts earlier had not come on the surface and her arrest was not known.

He said how she was arrested, where she was shifted and how she reached the US were the facts, which must be known and after knowing these, her case could be presented in a better way that could help in her release as well.

Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar said if such information had been shared earlier, it would have greatly helped in her case. At this, Justice Javed Iqbal said that according to the US law, additional evidences could be provided to the court at any stage.

A US court on February 3 found Dr Aafia Siddiqui guilty of attempting to murder US agents while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan in 2008. Hashmat Habib advocate filed a civil miscellaneous application (CMA) in his petition already pending before the court since July 25, 2007, requesting the court to direct the federal government to prepare a report in chronological order regarding Dr Aafia Siddiqui from the date of her kidnapping i.e. March 2003 from Karachi till the date of her resurfacing on July 7, 2008 in Ghazni, Afghanistan. He requested the court to direct the government to send the same report, duly documented through the court process along with her children to the American trial court.