ISLAMABAD: At the time when former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf was entering the premises of the Special Court on Tuesday a few yards away a book written by him reverberated in the Supreme Court where a three-judge bench was hearing the case of a missing person, Masood Janjua.
“There was a book In the Line of Fire written by the then army chief in which it was written somewhere in the first edition that some Pakistani citizens were handed over to US in consideration of bounty,” observed Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja.
The court asked Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar to submit relevant excerpts after comparing the first and second editions of the book.
“There has to be some closure (of the case) somewhere,” Justice Khawaja observed.
The court expressed dismay over a categorical statement made by Additional Advocate General of Punjab Razzaq A. Mirza that Masood Janjua, the husband of petitioner Amina Masood Janjua, was no more in the world.
Mr Mirza narrated the same old statement recorded by ISI’s Director General (Internal) retired Maj Gen Nusrat Naeem before the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances on June 13, 2011, which stated that a Pakistani man code-named Tariq who was allegedly working with the US as an agent of CIA and was killed eight years ago in South Waziristan had arranged a meeting of Masood Janjua with Al Qaeda leader Sheikh Saad Al Misri.
According to the statement, Al Misri who introduced the concept of suicide bombings and beheading of prisoners both in Afghanistan and Pakistan was on the hit list of CIA. Through Masood Janjua and Faisal Faraz two laptops equipped with a satellite detection chip was delivered to the Al Qaeda leader. Mansoor Sohail, an associate of Al Misri, who was a computer expert, detected the chip and showed it to Al Misri after which both Janjua and Faraz were killed mercilessly because they thought the two were double crossing them.
The statement of Nusrat Naeem has been cited before the Supreme Court at least three times on different occasions, earlier by former additional attorney general K. K. Agha and then by Tariq Khokhar. The statement is also on the record of the apex court.
Mr Mirza explained that Masood Janjua was murdered in 2005. How Janjua could be in the custody of an intelligence agency for such a long period, he asked.But the court was not happy with the findings and said one should be sensitive when asking whether the statement of Nusrat Naeem would be the end of the investigation in the case. The government should identify the place of burial and the court would order a DNA test.
“Why are you taking us on a wild-goose chase,” Justice Khawaja observed.The court expressed disappointment at the ongoing investigation and failure of the Punjab Police to contact Dr Imran Munir.
On Feb 10 the Punjab Police had told the apex court that the UNHCR had declined to share any information about Dr Munir who, according to Amina Masood Janjua, had once written in a diary that he had heard about a businessman from Rawalpindi named Janjua in a detention centre in Rawalpindi.
SP Photohar Haroon Joya told the court that privacy laws and international conventions under which the UNHCR operated did not permit it to share any information about an individual listed with it or the agency for asylum or someone residing in its campus.
A report submitted by the Rawalpindi police said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through a letter of July 25, 2013, had informed police that the High Commission in Colombo had tried to get access to Dr Munir through UNHCR office in Sri Lanka. However, police had been told informally that Dr Munir was living in a UNHCR Camp in Kandy and listed at Serial No 53 of the UNHCR list as an asylum seeker. The report said the Foreign Office had asked the Pakistani Mission in Colombo to continue efforts to find any possible way to access Dr Munir.
The court was told that of the list of 11 witnesses which Amna Janjua had submitted before the court for cross-examination only eight, including former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf submitted their affidavits before the court.