Caretaker PM skips IHC hearing on missing Baloch students

Caretaker PM skips IHC hearing on missing Baloch students. Earlier on Saturday, interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti expressed displeasure with a summons from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in the case of the missing Baloch students. And on Saturday, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar announced that he would not be appearing in the case on behalf of the Government.

As per the request of the high court, if the more than 50 missing Baloch students were not found by Wednesday, when the court had requested that they appear before it, the prime minister and caretaker ministers as well as the interior and defence secretaries would be summoned.

The Baloch Enforced Disappearance Commission’s recommendations have been accepted by a single-member bench – led by Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani – which passed the orders.

My participation in the 28th UN Climate Conference will require me to spend some time abroad. Obviously, there are several commitments that the prime minister has to fulfill in his capacity as prime minister. Apart from this, we will also make sure we are represented in other relevant forums,” he told Geo News’ Shahzad Iqbal in an interview.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Caretaker Interior Minister Bugti expressed his skepticism about the idea of summoning the prime minister. According to him, it is not appropriate for the court to summon the premier on a regular basis for just about everything that happens on a daily basis.

According to the prime minister, during today’s interview, he also supported Bugti’s statement that Pakistan has the lowest number of missing persons in the region and that this is due to the fact that it is a fact as well as an aspect of the country’s history.

It is worth noting that the former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, also appeared before a court of inquiry in September last year in a case pertaining to missing persons, in which he claimed that he would not make “lame excuses” if the missing people were not found.

A Sindh High Court judge had also hinted earlier this week that the court would summon the interim prime minister if police and provincial authorities had not been able to make any progress in locating the missing persons.

‘I don’t have a favourite’

With the elections set to take place in the near future, several political parties have alleged that the caretaker rulers favor the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and are not providing equal opportunities to other political parties.

The caretakers disagreed with Kakar’s stance, saying that there were no favours shown by them to the students. According to him, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) or the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will have no restrictions regarding electioneering – irrespective of whether they are a part of the PTI or PPP.

“We are going to ensure that the elections are transparent. In addition to using the ‘victim card’ to woo voters, some [parties] also use it as a means to woo voters.” The prime minister said, adding that PTI is not prohibited from campaigning in this year’s elections.”

While he stated that he would take action when it came to the “justified complaints” made by political parties, he also pointed out that there are incidents when authorities have not allowed the parties to hold rallies in sporadic instances.

A few days after the elections, when asked what he thought about the possibility that there could be allegations leveled and that the polls were not transparent, he replied: “Big political parties and relevant stakeholders will have to take this situation into consideration.”

In an interview with Reuters, the prime minister, who led the Balochistan Awami Party up until the time he was appointed as the leader of the interim government, said he had no intention of joining any political party at the moment. However, at the end of the current set-up, I will definitely consider it once this setup has come to an end.”

With regard to the economy, he said that in the next couple of weeks, the nation would hear “good news,” and he praised the Special Investment Facilitation Council, saying it was a stance that was consistent regardless of who was in power at the time.