“During my captivity in a small cell of an intelligence agency for 18 days, I would think every night in the wake of severe type of physical and mental torture that I would never see the next morning,” says 41-year-old Ali Khan (original name withheld to protect identity).
Khan was whisked away on October 18, 2001, from Sariab Road along with a friend Hazur Bakhsh (original name withheld to protect identity). Bakhsh is still missing. They were facing the allegations of being involved in bombings and having relations with Indian intelligence agency RAW.
He said, “Even after 13 years, the ordeal is still afresh in my mind. It shakes my whole body whenever I remember it and cannot sleep for many nights.”
He said a few plainclothesmen abducted them in a jeep. “Our hands were tied with a rope and faces covered with black hoods. After a 30-minute drive, they threw us in different cells. Within an hour, few people entered my cell and started beating me up.”
“Next morning an army officer came to my cell and treated me gently, advising me to tell everything,” Khan said. “I was interrogated and was subject to severe torture during my confinement for charges of receiving foreign funds and involvement in bombings,” he said.
According to him, no evidence was provided to him about his involvement, but the interrogators forced him to confess to his crimes. He complained that he was not provided proper food during his confinement.
“When my health deteriorated, a doctor visited me and advised them to stop torturing me. When nothing proved, they gave me some money so that I could travel back home.”
The family of Bakhsh, 46, are on a token hunger strike for the last six years. According to his family members, the personnel of an intelligence agency contacted them in the first two years of his confinement and took clothes for him with a promise that he would return soon.
According to the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) data, 2,750 cases have been registered so far. As many as 655 people have been killed in the last three years. Intelligence agencies have released 27 people, data adds.
Former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary time and again reprimanded the officials of FC and intelligence agencies during hearings of the missing persons’ cases. The court also directed the government to remove FC IG Ijaz Shahid for not appearing before the court.
Political parties such as the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, the Jamhoori Watan Party and the Baloch National Movement are hesitant to enter into dialogue with the government until any breakthrough is achieved in this regard.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has given the Balochistan government a task to bring dissident Baloch leaders on the negotiating table. Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch had contacted Baloch leaders in this regard, but received a cold shoulder from nationalists as well as separatists due to a lack of progress in the missing persons’ issue.
“I admit that we have failed to resolve the issue of missing persons despite our efforts,” Baloch had admitted at the Karachi Press Club.
Former Balochistan Corps Commander Lt Gen Jawaid Zia had expressed his deep concern over the recovery of decomposed bodies.
“We should be gentle, even to those Baloch youth who burn Pakistani flag. [We should] try to know his grievances instead of killing him. The recovery of bodies of missing persons is the make or break point for the country,” Zia had said.
The Balochistan problem is very much related to missing persons issue and unless it is addressed, the government would be able to bring angry Baloch leaders on the negotiating table.
Factsheet
1,428 Cases
There are 35 missing persons from Malakand recently, while hundreds of them have been detained from Balochistan and Sindh. According to details of missing persons presented by the interior ministry in the Senate this week the total number of cases is 1,428.
304 in Supreme Court
In its written response, the ministry submitted the total 304 cases of missing persons are pending in the Supreme Court, 14 in the Lahore High Court, 174 in Sindh, 101 in Peshawar and 22 in the Balochistan High Court.
700 in tribal areas
Last year, then attorney general Irfan Qadir had told the SC there are about 700 people detained in the tribal areas and they cannot be released until the ongoing military operation in those regions concludes.
–Umair Aziz
No one has the guts to take on the agencies: I A Rehman, Secretary General, HRCP
“This is such a serious issue but even the Supreme Court could not do anything about it. There are several cases in various courts but still no progress has been shown so far. Thirty five people detained from Malakand is just one latest case, but what about hundreds abducted from Balochistan and Sindh.
“There are so many people marching towards the capital from these affected areas and they are still sitting in the camps, but it seems no one cares for their plight.
“If the government has been serious in resolving the issue, it would have done something about the three-judge commission, formed in 2010, and which demanded that the missing persons cases should be resolved under the law.
“Governments have just been passing the buck from one regime to another without showing actual progress on the issue. The fact is no one has got the guts to talk to them [the agencies involved in detentions],” said I.A. Rehman, secretary general, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
To a question, he said, there is no justification in accusing someone of a crime, abducting him and proving him guilty without involving any court of law. To another question of government bringing in an ordinance on the missing persons, he said, it is premature to welcome any step by the government as it could be mere talk as well.
–Umair Aziz
