PRESIDENT Musharraf may have a point when he says that people often go “missing” when, without the knowledge of their families, they join the ranks of extremist organisations so that they can be trained for suicide missions and other “anti-state activities”. This may be true of some disappearances but not all. Surely the country’s all-powerful intelligence agencies too cannot be absolved of all blame for a situation where involuntary disappearances have been growing by the day. The number, according to some sources, could be far higher than the 400 or so cases documented by human rights groups since many families, worried for the safety of their missing ones, choose not to report their cases. Moreover, their numbers include not only those picked up on suspicion of having links with religious groups, but many others thought to be inciting anti-state feelings in Sindh and restive Balochistan. Indeed, as pointed out by Asma Jahangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the majority of the 141 missing persons on a list submitted by the HRCP to the Supreme Court are secular Baloch and Sindhi nationalists including poets and writers. With his sole focus on the dangers of Talibanisation and the war on terror, President Musharraf has chosen not to dilate on this aspect. He has also failed to provide an answer to critics who ask how the intelligence agencies have previously released individuals who had been held incommunicado for long by them.

Whatever the affiliation of those unaccounted for and believed to be in the custody of the intelligence agencies, the government must bear ultimate responsibility for flouting all constitutional tenets and international conventions pertaining to civil liberties. Every individual has the right to a fair trial, and one hopes that the Supreme Court will take up the question of the missing people as forcefully as it did before Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was made “non-functional”. Besides causing deep anguish to the affected families, this rising trend of forced disappearances has also been noted by the international press and human rights groups. Pakistan’s image, already tarnished, will risk further damage if steps are not taken to prevent the country’s slide towards authoritarianism. For his part, the president needs to address the issue in its totality rather than selectively.