Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) rejected on Thursday an investigation report submitted by the Sindh police in a case pertaining to the abduction of two daughters by their father, Asif Baloch.
During the hearing of the case filed by the mother, Dr Mehreen Baloch, for the recovery of her daughters, the top court grilled the Sindh police and said the report submitted by the joint investigation team (JIT) did not contain any “concrete material”. “The wordings of the old report were paraphrased and submitted as a new report,” the court added.
The Sindh prosecutor general requested the court to grant two-week time which was accepted by the bench. The SC said if the girls weren’t recovered by the next hearing, the court will initiate proceedings against the Sindh police chief.
The SSP South also drew the court’s ire during the hearing. The SC bench said the mother of the kids would not be going from one door to the other had the police shown any interest in the recovery of her daughters.
How hard it is to trace someone in the current era, the court said, adding that the accused, Asif Baloch, was on the run from the police for five years.
CJP Umar Atta Bandial asked whether the police tried to trace the suspect through his bank transactions and phone records.
“Who has been financially supporting the suspect over these five years,” it asked.
The SSP South responded that the police interrogated those who were in touch with the accused. “We raided a place [to arrest the suspect], but the police had to face proceedings as a result,” the SSP informed the court. Justice Bandial said police just needed to investigate with intelligence.
The prosecutor general urged the court to issue notice to NADRA, saying the suspect might have got a new identity card. “Can’t the Sindh government seek this information from NADRA by itself,” Justice Sajjad Ali Shah asked.
The court issued notice to the Sindh IG, JIT chief and members and asked them to attend the proceedings to be held after two weeks via videolink
