With their firm resolve unmoved by the severity of changing weather, the families of missing persons continued their sit-in camped in front of Federal Parliament of Pakistan for the third week in protest against spy agencies and apathy of government towards enforced disappearances. It is the 16th day since the establishment of the camp on February 15th.
Hoping that the sit-in will bear fruit, two women from Khyber Pakhtunkhaw, Shazia Bibi and Abida Bibi continued their protest in sit-in camp looking for the release of their husbands, who went missing on January, 17, 2010.
Speaking about their husbands who were mutual friends, Shazia Bibi and Abida Bibi, told Pakistan Today how the Military Intelligence operatives took Iraq Khatak, the husband of Shazia and Muhammad Wali, the husband of Abida Bibi in their custody. Another woman Amina Bibi from South Punjab arrived today in the hope that she might find her son Irfan Ahmed who went missing on 28th June last year.
Buchal Mai from district Muzafar Garh told that her son Bilal Ahmed had gone missing for the last 15 years. A student of Agriculture University Peshawar, Imran Khan, hailing from South Waziristan Agency narrating his ordeal said his brother Advocate Aurangzeb and advocate Elahi were picked by espionage operatives on July 14th, 2011. Most people at the missing persons’ camp, when questioned, failed to provide information regarding the activities of their missing relatives that could count as evidence for the security agencies against them. For their mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers and wives, the missing were either innocent or were picked up in ‘misunderstanding’.
Defence of Human Rights Chairperson Aamna Masood Janjua apprised Pakistan Today that she had submitted two applications to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in support of missing persons, adding that she had submitted her reasons for holding in-camera hearing of her husband’s disappearances in the second letter that the Supreme Court sought from her. Speaking about the growing momentum of the sit-in camp, Amna Janjua said that about 96 more names have been registered with DHRP within 16 days along with 9 fresh cases registered today, adding that over 150 families of missing persons have joined the camp so far and the number of missing persons has reached 1100.
Giving a detailed account of missing persons, Chairman DHR Amna Masood Janjua said that almost 2000 to 4000 citizens had been picked up by sleuth agencies operatives since 9/11.
She enumerated that present government numbers were 1291, adding that then dictator Musharaf confessed in his book that 689 detainees were handed over to the United States. She said missing persons from Balochistan were around 1700, adding that the traced and released persons out of 1015 were around 500 and still around 515 persons were missing.
She said that it seemed that one day the whole nation would be kidnapped as there was complete anarchy in the country with zero observance of supremacy of the constitution. Amna Janjua said that they were not given an encouraging response from the government, adding that the government has become a silent spectator and no single minister has bothered even to visit the camp except for a parliamentary secretary for human rights, who also merely indulged in lip service.
Janjua said that the campaign has been quite successful as some five missing persons have been released by unknown persons during the week as a result of the protest. The missing persons, who have been recovered, included Iftikhar Ahmed, Abdul Rehman, Waqas and Engineer Bashir Ahmed.
Janjua said that her organisation (DHRP) has decided to continue the protest unless all the missing persons are recovered. The camp was set up by Defence of Human Rights on 15th February at D-Chowk for an indefinite period to formally launch campaign for the release of missing persons. Politicians, human rights activists, lawyers and other people including a large number of federal capital residents were approaching the camp of missing persons’ families to express solidarity with them. They also criticised the role of the agencies. So far the camp has been visited by Khawaja Saad Rafique of PML-N, Lt. Gen(R) Hameed Gul, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, Javed Hashmi of PTI and Qazi Hussain Ahmed of Jamaat-i-Islami.
