A report by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance submitted on Tuesday before the Supreme Court revealed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province reported the highest number of cases of missing persons among all provinces
The report was submitted by the Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan in light of the Supreme Court’s directions issued on January 4.
The report indicates that KP reported 3,485 cases of enforced disappearance. In some cases, terrorism, deaths in drone attacks, and moving to foreign countries without informing the family were the reasons.
Balochistan reported 2,752 cases of missing persons – highest after KP.
The report stated the commission issued at least 744 production orders to produce missing persons, but only 52 were met with compliance while the concerned authority did not respond to 692 production orders.
Subsequently, the commission approached agencies and police with the 182 applications for reviewing production orders but they did not respond. At least 503 of those unimplemented orders were sent from KP.
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The commission noted that a total of 4,413 cases were reported between March 2011 and December 2023. Of those 994 were imprisoned in different detention centres, 644 were in jails, and 261 were killed in different incidents.
During the inquiry, the commission dismissed 1,477 cases that turned out to be kidnapping for ransom, personal enmity, and spontaneous concealment. These were not the real cases of enforced disappearance.
The report noted the number of pending cases in KP, Punjab, and Sindh is 1336, 260, and 163, respectively. Balochistan’s 468, Islamabad’s 55 and 15 cases of Azad Kashmir related to missing persons also awaiting the decision.
The Commission of Inquiry is headed by Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal and comprises Justice (retired) Amaullah Khan Zai from Balochistan, Justice (retired) Zia Pervez from Sindh and Mohammad Sharif Virk, a retired police officer.
Besides them there are 35 officers deployed for commission.
The commission was formed in 2011, aiming to inquire into the cases related to the enforced disappearance.
