ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Athar Minallah equated enforced disappearances with treason on Friday.<\/p>\n
The remark came during the hearing of missing journalist Mudassar Naro’s case at the IHC.<\/p>\n
Naro, a journalist from Lahore, went missing in August 2018.<\/p>\n
At the outset of the hearing, the additional attorney-general and judicial assistant appeared before the court.<\/p>\n
“Enforced disappearances are treason. It is a case of treason,” Justice Minallah remarked.<\/p>\n
He said that enforced disappearances are not acceptable in a country that follows the Constitution.<\/p>\n
He asked if the inability to recover Mudassar Naro was the failure of state agencies, adding that the federal and provincial governments should have looked into this matter.<\/p>\n
“Can anyone be disappeared without their [federal and provincial governments] will? No,” the judge declared.<\/p>\n
“People going missing is the incompetence of the state. The executive is responsible if the state agencies are not in control. Why don’t we declare the executive responsible for it.”<\/p>\n
The judge went on to say that sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act are applied in the enforced disappearance cases.<\/p>\n