KARACHI – Pasban Karachi President Usman Moazzam’s nephew was abducted from near his house in Gulshan-e-Hadeed on Saturday. Moazzam said that Aazib Imtiaz Qudwai was kidnapped because he has close ties with the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). Aazib’s father Nafees Qudwai said, “My son and I were on our way to the mosque to offer the Fajr prayer when an Indus Corolla without a number plate collided with him. Three men carrying weapons got out of the car, forced him into the vehicle and drove away. The abductors told me that they worked for the government.” After the incident family members of the abducted persons addressed a press conference at the Karachi press club.
“Intelligence agencies abducted our son and we will file a suit in the honourable high court against the abductors,” they said. “If our son is not released soon, we will protest and go one a hunger strike,” they added. Pasban Karachi President Usman Moazzam said that his organisation will start a protest campaign that will last until Qudwai’s release. Qudwai’s parents said if their son is guilty of any wrongdoing, the intelligence agencies should put present him before a court. “More than 200 people have been abducted from different parts of the country during the tenure of the current government that takes the unofficial figure of people who went missing in the last nine years to 10,000,” Amna Masood Janjua, chairperson of the Defence for Human Rights Pakistan, told Pakistan Today.
Janjua said that the current government is claiming to be a democratic government, but it is still carrying on with the policies of the previous dictator. “People are going missing in large numbers and this is a horrible fact,” she added. She said that many families of missing persons are not registering their complaints with the DHRP as they are receiving threats from the abductors. “Only 3,500 people have registered their complaints with the government but this data has not been provided to the DHRP,” she said. She revealed that more than 820 people have been abducted from Sindh, out of which 80 percent are from Karachi.
“Students and senior citizens are also shamelessly kidnapped by the law enforcement agencies,” she said. She said that the DHRP provided an updated list of 244 people who have gone missing in recent months to the inquiry commission. According to list, 135 persons have been abducted from Punjab, 65 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 from Balochistan, 22 from Karachi, nine from the tribal areas and five from Azad Kashmir.