ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court’s (IHC’s) Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani has ordered that Kashmiri poet Ahmed Farhad be declared an “enforced disappearance/missing person” till he reaches his home safely, it emerged.
A written order of Friday’s hearing, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, stated: “Syed Farhad Ali Shah is declared an enforced disappearance/missing person until he reaches his home safely.”Farhad had been allegedly abducted from his home on May 15, with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan calling for his immediate release.
A petition had been filed by Farhad’s wife in the IHC the same day, requesting that he be found and produced before the court and to identify, investigate and prosecute those responsible for his disappearance.
Justice Kayani had also framed 12 questions, mostly related to the functions and obligations of spy agencies — the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
After multiple IHC orders, Farhad resurfaced on May 29, when the government informed the court that the poet was in the custody of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) police under the case registered the same day of obstructing public servant’s duties.
On June 1, Farhad was brought to a health facility in Muzaffarabad for his medical check-up hours after his counsel had requested the same before an anti-terrorism court (ATC).Last week, an AJK ATC rejected the poet’s bail plea, holding that the legal points advanced by his counsel did not apply to the case in hand.
On June 7, the IHC had disposed of the petition seeking Farhad’s recovery, with the remarks that apparently it was causing hardship to the incarcerated poet.
In the written order issued today for the same hearing, Justice Kayani observed that when Farhad would reach his home, the investigation officer of Islamabad’s LohiBher police station was bound to record his statement “under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) before a judicial magistrate and proceed with the investigation as a result”.
