‘Disappearance’ Cases
 

JUSTICE Javed Iqbal’s observation that religious groups, by admitting men in their ranks to fight jihad, were contributing to the phenomenon of disappearances in the country echoes the sentiments of both Gen Musharraf and Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao. No one can dispute their claim. Extremist organisations successfully use religious indoctrination to win over hundreds of young recruits. Some go to the extent of abducting young men to train them for carrying out terrorist attacks. But this should not be allowed to gloss over the tragedy of those who have been picked up, kept incommunicado and tortured by the state’s intelligence agencies. Not all of them have religious affiliations and a large number are political activists whose links with nationalist parties makes them suspect in the eyes of the state. Those who are released have terrifying tales to tell of their incarceration. They are warned not to speak of their ordeal, and there have been cases where former detainees who dared do so were taken away again. One can only imagine the fears that haunt their families who are struggling to discover their whereabouts.

While judicial intervention has resulted in the release of a handful of detainees, the fate of hundreds of missing people, including those whose names have not been submitted in the court, remains unknown. Many others continue to be picked up by state agencies. Considering that even the Supreme Court has failed to elicit a satisfactory response from government officials, including the attorney-general who has consistently remained absent from court proceedings, the role of the intelligence agencies can only be seen as being open-ended. The deputy attorney-general has said that he could not be of much help since the interior ministry had not been forthcoming with the required information. The defence ministry had earlier admitted that it did not have operational control of the agencies under it. Quite obviously, unless the role of the intelligence agencies is defined and it is made clear who they report to, there will be no satisfactory answers. The agencies will continue to be a law unto themselves by arbitrarily detaining and torturing people until the question of their accountability is resolved.