EDITORIAL: Who took the ‘disappeared’ people?

President General Pervez Musharraf has once again denied that his government is behind the disappearance of hundreds of citizens. He said they could be “in the custody of jihadi groups” and spoke about the rising tide of extremism in the country, implying that the people who had “disappeared” have probably gone to wage jihad on their own or under the influence of extremist jihadi organisations. General Musharraf insists that “the government is not involved” and that “these people may have gone on their own...to Kashmir, Afghanistan or Iraq”.

But most families protesting the ‘disappearance’ of their relatives insist that they were ‘picked up’ by state agencies or the police. There are at least 400 such people whose antecedents are known and they simply could not be said to have been interested in extremism or jihad.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which went to the Supreme Court with its list of ‘disappeared’ people, says that over 70 percent of the list comprises people who could not be labelled jihadi, meaning that they were not wedded to the aggressive Islamism or Talibanisation that General Musharraf talked about. They were Baloch and belong to the obviously secular local Baloch nationalist politics of the province.

There is no gainsaying the assertion that a large number of people in Pakistan have gone and joined various jihadi organisations. When they were recruited from such Punjabi cities as Gujranwala or Multan or Jhang the government of the day did not analyse the consequence of its jihadi policy. In fact, the organisations that advanced the cause of jihad were patronised by the state. Therefore the youngsters who were lost fighting in the way of God are not the ‘disappeared’ people that the families are looking for.

In fact those who laid down their lives for Islam never died or disappeared. There are magazines that continue to announce their martyrdom and many parents accept that as their reward for service to their religion. These martyrs were drawn from all the provinces and Punjab being the largest province population-wise lost more men than other provinces. In 2001, when the Americans invaded Afghanistan, mostly Pushtun youths were sent to Afghanistan to defend their Taliban brothers and many disappeared into the prisons of the warlords of the Northern Alliance.

The problem is with those who were picked up by the police and the security agencies and were never returned to their families. There are two types of such disappearances. Often ‘thanedars’ will pick up people on some pretext or the other to extract ransoms from their families. Many ‘disappeared’ cases belong in this category. Therefore the government must always be prepared to go after such branch-line officers and punish them for defying the habeas corpus law.

Then there are the cases of political ‘disappearances’. A mere glance at the details of some of the cases will make it clear that they are not those lured away by jihad or hauled up by greedy police officials. MM, a director of Baloch Voice, a television station based in Bahrain, went missing after arriving in Karachi, last year. His family alleged that he was arrested by intelligence officers at the airport. His family said he had gone to Karachi to recruit technical staff for his TV station. MM’s whereabouts remain unknown. HS, a poet and writer in Balochi, went missing after being picked up by intelligence officers in Turbat, Balochistan, in January 2006. He wrote articles and poetry regarding the poor economic and social conditions of the people in Balochistan. Desperate to learn of his whereabouts, his mother and relatives staged a hunger strike in front of the Karachi Press Club for over 40 days. More well known is the case of AB, a political activist of Balochistan, who ‘disappeared’ six years ago when abducted by the law enforcement agencies in Quetta. His children and relatives staged a hunger strike for months in front of the Quetta Press Club.

One can go on and on. The fact is that ‘disappearances’ have taken place during the years Pakistan has tried to cope with its ‘ungoverned spaces’. No one can say that it is a new phenomenon. Past governments too denied them to cover up the activity of their intelligence agencies. Not all the disappearances were planned by the government, but some were. The only way to tackle ‘disappearances’ is to pledge clearly that nothing against the law will be allowed to be done and that all efforts will be made to find the people spirited away by the state. Just because the state doesn’t have the ability or inclination to pursue the legal course and prosecute people for breaking the law, it doesn’t mean that it should capture and imprison people unaccountably. *
 

Daily Times