The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Monday said that it had consistently submitted complete and verified information to the various official probes into enforced disappearance.
Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, head of an enquiry commission on missing persons, had earlier said there had been baseless propaganda pertaining to the number of missing persons in the country and that the authorities had been unable to compile the complete details of those on the list of missing persons. He had also claimed that foreign agencies were involved in the issue of missing persons.
In reply to his comments, HRCP said that it had never forwarded any case without verifying it first to the inquiry commission and had always submitted information as per the United Nations performa for victims of enforced disappearance.
A statement issued by HRCP said that the commission had succeeded in tracing many of the missing persons whose cases were submitted by HRCP, and it was only because all the available details had been provided.
“The ex-judge’s claim of ‘concrete evidence’ of involvement of foreign agencies in abduction of Pakistani citizens raises the question of why the authorities have not managed to prevent their actions in Pakistani territory, shared the evidence with the people or taken up the matter with the countries in question,” the statement said.
It said further that the commission should not criticise those doing their job with the utmost sense of honesty.
HRCP had been pursuing the case of enforced disappearances in the Supreme Court and elsewhere since January 2007.
