Govt to re-constitute committee on missing persons issue: law minister

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar on Tuesday said that the incumbent government was serious to address the long standing issue of missing persons and was going to re-constitute the committee on it.

He was addressing a press conference along with Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar.

The law minister said that 10,200 cases of missing persons were registered in the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIoED), out of which around 8,000 cases have been addressed.

He said that the former PDM-led government formed a committee on the issue with the representation of all stakeholders. Now the incumbent government was going to re-constitute the parliamentary committee to continue its work on the subject, the official news agency reported.

Azam Nazeer said that the issue of missing persons was four decades old, thus it could not be resolved overnight. He said that the involvement of government institutions in the matter could not be denied but no concrete evidence was ever produced before the committee in this regard.

He said that reports of missing persons were also not 100 percent correct every time. Two people were facing jail sentences in various cases while one was found among the attackers of Gwadar attack, he said.

Pakistan Army and people, he said, have lost number of lives in the incidents of terrorism in the country. He said that there was a need to get a political solution along with the legal efforts, adding that if anyone was found involved in a crime he must be prosecuted.