Missing man’s father faints in courtroom; KP police chief summoned

ISLAMABAD: An aged man collapsed in Courtroom 1 on Wednesday after learning that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police had again come empty-handed, without any progress in finding his son Khairur Rehman who has been missing since Feb 9, 2009, from Bajaur. Abdul Rehman, who is running from pillar to post and had attended a number of proceedings of the Supreme Court along with his old wife, was immediately taken outside the room for treatment. But he soon regained consciousness and instead of going to the medical centre situated inside the court premises, insisted on leaving quietly. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, ordered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Ehsan Ghani to appear before it on Aug 2 and explain the reasons of the department’s failure to trace Khairur Rehman. Before falling down, Abdul Rehman wailed over his plight, only to be told by the Islamabad police personnel on duty not to make noise. Eventually, he fainted. Khairur Rehman had been serving as a prayer leader in the Bilal Mosque in Bajaur for 13 years. An Afghan refugee who used to offer prayers in the mosque, got acquainted with him and started living in the upper portion of his house without rent. On Feb 9, 2009, the local authorities and police raided his house and arrested the Afghan national along with Khairur Rehman, his sister and her mentally retarded husband. The woman and her husband were released nine days later. Since then, his whereabouts are not known despite repeated directives by the apex court to the police to trace him. Referring to an application of Abida Malik, the court held that the Military Intelligence, accused of picking up her husband Tasif Ali alias Danish, was not involved in the crime as an institution but it was a case of a missing person and some private party might be involved in his disappearance. Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar submitted a statement that the matter had been taken up with the MI directorate in the General Headquarters. The Military Intelligence had replied that Tasif Ali had neither been apprehended nor was he in their custody and their own ground check had shown that Maj Haider, who was being accused of having arrested the man, had no link with the abduction. The court ordered the authorities to deal with the matter in accordance with the law, meaning thereby that police could arrest Maj Haider in his individual capacity for his alleged role in the disappearance. According to Abida, her husband Tasif Ali was allegedly picked up by Maj Haider of the MI on Nov 23, 2011, from Azad Kashmir. His father-in-law Dr Mohammad Aslam had informed the court earlier that his son-in-law had an altercation over telephone with the major a day before his abduction. According to him, Maj Haider may be a business partner of Tasif, a timber trader. Dr Aslam said he had also met Maj Haider, but the latter was not accessible since the meeting. About one Humayun Asad, the court held that it was not a case of enforced disappearance since the person himself was involved in seven offences, including terrorism. Asad was a computer businessman who went missing on Feb 9, 2011.