In historic first, court in Pak takes on Army, ISI

The Islamabad High Court has slapped a fine on the Pakistani Defence Secretary and rapped the country's powerful ISI agency. This is rarein a country where the army is usually out of bounds.

The court had been hearing a case related to two missing brothers who, Pakistani newspapers reported last month, were allegedly "disappeared" by a "spy agency".

The court had, at the time, told the country's all-powerful army and the ISI to not meddle in the affairs of other departments. The court added that the country's agencies needed to stay within the bounds of the country's constitution.

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The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on:

a. Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Lt General (retd) Zamirul Hassan Shah
b. Islamabad Chief Commissioner, Zulfiqar Haider
c. Islamabad Inspector General of Police, Khalid Khan Khattak
d. Islamabad District Magistrate Capt (retd) Mushtaq Ahmed.

Interestingly, in its judgement, the court borrowed from the famous Supreme Court of India'sjudgement in "Bhim Singh, MLA vs State of J&K and others".

On the ISI meanwhile, the court said: "It is the duty of the Special Branch, Intelligence Bureau, the Inter-Services Intelligence and the Military Intelligence to collect information and promptly report to the concerned functionaries regarding any incident of abduction of a citizen having the characteristics of an 'enforced disappearance' and to take effective measures in tracing the whereabouts of the victim."

The Islamabad High Court’s Justice Athar Minallah added that “enforced disappearance is one of the cruellest and inhuman acts and categorised as a crime against humanity.”