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Spotlight on Pakistan's "disappeared"

Nirupama Subramanian

Their mothers and wives are demanding to be told the whereabouts of the men believed to have been picked up by intelligence agencies for suspected links with Al-Qaeda.

PAKISTAN'S POWERFUL intelligence agencies are facing an unprecedented challenge, and it is coming not from any external force but from within the country.

Like the famous Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the May Square) of Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, the mothers and wives of Pakistan's "disappeared" are demanding to be told the whereabouts of their sons and husbands, believed to have been picked up by intelligence agencies for their suspected links with Al-Qaeda.

The families are in the midst of a legal battle against the government, unparalleled for the spotlight it has shone on the workings of Pakistan's "agencies" — the Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence, and the Intelligence Bureau.

Court's role

Stunning critics who say it is nothing but a rubber-stamp of the regime, the Supreme Court of Pakistan too has played no small role in the unfolding drama. On November 10, the Court gave the Ministry of Interior until December 1 to come up with the whereabouts of 41 missing men whose case it is hearing.

On the appointed day, when a representative of the Interior Ministry told a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice that it had traced only 20, the Court expressed dissatisfaction in strong words.

"You have not done enough," Chief Justice Ifthikar Mohammed Chaudhary said, ordering the Interior Ministry to come up with the details of the remaining 21 by December 15.

It was the responsibility of the court to find these citizens of Pakistan, he said, with a sharp rebuke to the Interior Ministry official for suggesting that the case should be closed in respect of at least one of the missing men as it was likely he was in Afghanistan.

"Who are you to tell us to dispose of the case? It's a question of our authority. Tomorrow you will ask for closing the doors of the Supreme Court itself," the Chief Justice said.

A moving force behind the struggle to trace the disappeared is Amina Masood, the wife of the man who the Interior Ministry suggested could be in Afghanistan. She last saw her husband, Masood Ahmed Janjua, a businessman running a college in Rawalpindi, on July 30, 2005, when he left his home to go to Peshawar. A friend who was going with him on the trip has also been missing from the same day.

The court took notice on its own of Ms. Masood's complaint about her husband's disappearance after it was published in a newspaper in December 2005. The Chief Justice ordered the Punjab police to trace her husband. Meanwhile, her father-in-law, a retired army colonel who once served with President Pervez Musharraf and was his senior, appealed to him directly in January 2006. Soon after, a caller from the President's office informed the distraught family that Masood Ahmed had been spotted by an informer. But nothing more happened.

When further attempts by Ms. Masood to contact the President yielded a blank, and with the police too ignoring the Court's directions, she decided to hit the road. "I was determined to find my husband and so desperate that I was ready to stand all by myself outside the Aiwan-e-Sadr (Presidential Palace) holding a banner demanding justice. I had even decided what I would write on the banners," she told this correspondent.

But through an organisation called the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights that is active on the missing people's issue, Ms. Masood contacted other families. She first persuaded the mother of her husband's friend, and then the mother of a scientist in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission — he went missing on his wedding day on June 25, 2004 — to join the vigil. Through September and October, they stood on a grassy knoll on Constitution Avenue, in front of Pakistan's most important buildings — the presidential palace, parliament, the Prime Minister's office, and the Supreme Court. Their numbers increased as more families joined the protest.

Help came from unexpected quarters with the release of President Musharraf's autobiography. In the Line of Fire speaks candidly about Pakistan capturing 689 "Al-Qaeda members" and handing over 369 to the United States in the course of "the war on terror," in return for bounties "totalling millions of dollars."

Amnesty's claim

Amnesty International said Pakistan "sells" terror suspects to the U.S. In a report on September 29, it said many terror suspects had been transferred illegally to the U.S. in violation of Pakistani laws and human rights in return for money.

Human rights activists in Pakistan say there have been hundreds of disappearances since 2002, linked to the "war on terror" and the insurgency in Balochistan. While the government is within its rights to arrest those suspected of terrorist activities, it cannot resort to extra-judicial detentions, and must produce them in court, they say.

In November, the Supreme Court once again took up the case of Masood Janjua and 40 others. Of the 20 people whom the Interior Ministry has traced, 10 have been reunited with their families while the rest have been charged for offences unrelated to terrorism.

"This proves what we have been saying all along, that the government knows exactly where these missing people are and can trace them if they want to. But still they are pretending they don't know. But they cannot cheat us anymore," said Ms. Masood. Crushed by the government's failure to provide information about her husband at the last hearing, Ms. Masood said she was happy for the families of those who had been found. A mother of two teenaged boys and a girl, Ms. Masood said the court's strong intervention had raised her hopes for her husband.

The impact of the case is widening. In the North West Frontier Province, seven men dramatically returned home two years after they went missing. They said they had been detained by "agencies," but last week they were suddenly handed over to the police in Peshawar, who then sent them onward to their homes.

The Supreme Court will on Wednesday hear another petition from the families of six serving army officers missing since 2004. The families allege they are in the custody of the "agencies."

Ms. Masood said she would be satisfied just with finding her husband. "I am not asking for damages, we don't want any compensation. Just give us back our loved ones," Ms. Masood said.

But Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Asma Jehangir said the court had to take a stronger stand. Instead of "brokering a compromise" between the victims and the government, it had to ensure that the perpetrators were not let off the hook even if all the missing were traced and reunited with their families.

"For the victims, any avenue that is opened up is welcome relief, and in that sense, this is too. But it will lead somewhere only if the court reprimands those who broke the law," said Ms. Jehangir.

For Ms. Masood and the families of the remaining 21, it is a tough wait until December 15. In case the government fails to provide information about the men to the court on that day, Ms. Masood said she was ready with her next move. "I will go and protest before every jail in the country until I find my husband," she said.

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