ISLAMABAD – The chairman of the Missing Persons Commission, Justice (r)Javed Iqbal has made new revelations about the missing persons issue inPakistan which is oftenly used in international media to malign Pakistanmilitary agencies.
He further said that the issue of missing persons has been politicised.
While briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights, Iqbal briefedlawmakers that from at least 5,000 complaints received by the commission,the commission has dealt with around 3,800.
Saying that the matter of missing persons has “always been politicised”,Iqbal said that Mama Qadeer had claimed that 40,000 people are missing,“and yet, to this day, we do not have any details regarding those cases”.
He also claimed that no government in the past 15 years made an effort forthe recovery of missing persons.
“In Balochistan, there are merely 131 cases regarding missing persons beingheard,” he said, adding that, in a number of instances, the commission hadfound that people are picked up by rival tribes due to personal enmity.
He also mentioned that after an inquiry was made, at least eight people whowere said to be missing from Balochistan were found to be “happily runningtheir businesses in Parachinar.”
“When Bramdagh Bugti, Herbyar Marri and Khairbux Marri left the country,they took hundreds of men with them. To date we haven’t even been able tofind out how many of our people are jailed in neighbouring countries,” headded.
Justice (r) Iqbal claimed that there are also a number of people fromBalochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) who are jailed in Paktia andNangarhar in Afghanistan.
Moving on to Sindh, the head of the commission said that out of 1,357 casesreceived from the province, the commission had taken care of 1,174 and 183remain open.
“A majority of the cases in Sindh involve workers of the Muttahida QaumiMovement (MQM),” Justice (r) Iqbal told lawmakers, informing them thatJustice Ghous Muhammad was overseeing cases pertaining to Sindh.