Pakistan force says no missing persons in custody

A Pakistani government paramilitary force blamed for the disappearance of dozens of people told the country's Supreme Court on Tuesday it had no missing persons in its custody.

The Supreme Court is investigating cases of missing people in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, where the military has been accused of rights violations in its bid to put down a separatist insurgency.

Pakistan's chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on July 13 ordered the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) commander Major General Obaidullah Khattak to produce 16 missing people.

The force in a written statement submitted at the court on Tuesday said it had conducted "internal inquiries" and found the group of missing people "was not held in the custody of FC".

It said in many cases insurgents dressed in FC uniforms committed "high profile acts of terrorism and heinous crimes... thus bringing (a) bad name to this federal organisation".

Chaudhry said he was not satisfied with the FC's reply and directed the paramilitary and civilian officials to appear again before the court on Wednesday.

"There is apparent failure of the executive machinery to control law and order," Chaudhry said.

It is the latest effort from the Supreme Court aimed at bringing Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence agencies to book over mass arrests of alleged terror suspects, many of whom are never seen again.

Chaudhry and two other judges are also hearing a case involving the alleged abduction of 32 people, two of whom were killed, in the Totak Khuzdar district of Baluchistan in February last year. Fourteen were released by security forces.

Baluchistan is one of the most deprived areas of Pakistan. Rights activists have accused the military of mass arrests and extrajudicial executions in its bid to put down a separatist insurgency that erupted in 2004.

In February, seven men allegedly held by intelligence services appeared before the Supreme Court in Islamabad, more than a year and a half after being detained in connection with terror attacks.

It was an unprecedented development that challenged perceptions that the feared Inter-Services Intelligence agency operates above the law.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-force-says-no-missing-persons-custody-181121693.html

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