Pakistan Peoples Party has expressed grave concern over the increasing incidents of kidnappings and mysterious disappearances of citizens allegedly by state agencies, and called for full disclosure of those disappeared, recovery of victims and for following due process of the law.
"It is a national disgrace that increasing number of citizens of the state not only vanish without a trace, but their disappearances is greeted with deafening silence by the state agencies", said PPP spokesman former Senator Farhatullah Babar in a statement on Wednesday. Quoting a published report, he said nearly 800 people had been picked up by the law-enforcement agencies during the past five years without due process.
He said the list of mysteriously disappeared citizens was growing day by day. The brothers of Baloch Senators Sanaullah Baloch and Shahid Bugti were recently kidnapped. Educationist Masood Ahmed Janjua kidnapped from Rawalpindi is missing since July 30 last year. MIT graduate Dr Aafia Sidiqui apparently wanted for questioning in a foreign country, is missing for three years.
Nuclear scientist Attiqur Rehman disappeared on his wedding day two years ago from Abbottabad. Dr Safdar Sarki of Jeay Sindh, Sindh Nationalist Forum President Asif Baladi and a private TV channel head Munir Mengal have also recently joined the long list of mysteriously disappeared citizens. He said that innocence or guilt could be established only in the court of law and not by intelligence agencies.
"The Human Rights Committees of the Senate and the National Assembly should jointly take up the issue and set up an independent commission to investigate the growing number of disappeared citizens in Pakistan".
He said the Ministry of Defence had recently been taking the position before the superior courts that it exercised only administrative control over the ISI and MI but had no operational control over them and as such could not enforce the court's directions on these agencies in detention matters. This is most disturbing and highlights the urgent need for ending duality of control over the states' intelligence agencies, he said.