Mysterious disappearances in Pakistan

Musharraf's Pakistan and his unchecked intelligence agencies reek havoc on human rights, as over 400 families struggle for information about their missing loved ones.

By Naveed Ahmad in Islamabad for ISN Security Watch (15/08/07)

In the early days of June 2004, a few unidentified persons were seen inquiring about Atiq-ur-Rahman, a young scientist from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), near his home in Abbotabad city, some 110 kilometers north of the capital Islamabad. Atiq went missing under mysterious circumstances on the morning of 23 June while his family and friends waited desperately for his wedding party.

Since then, Atiq's parents, his brother and five sisters, have been awaiting his return. "I believe my son will come home safe and sound," Siddiq-ur-Rahman, holding a framed picture of Atiq receiving a gold medal from none other than General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, tells ISN Security Watch.

Because of Atiq's position in the country's Atomic Energy Commission, his friends and family have logically assumed that he has been taken away by one of the country's intelligence agencies, but there has been no official word from anyone and the disappearance remains a mystery.

Three years later, on 16 July this year, Atiq's father-in-law finally said the engagement with his daughter Irum was no longer on.

Though the local police registered Atiq as missing, a formal investigation was never launched, and the family was soon asked to stop visiting the police station, saying one of the intelligence agencies had picked him up and there was nothing the local police could do.

To the utter surprise of the family, the PAEC did not panic over the development and instead kept dispatching warning letters asking Atiq to report to the office or lose his job. Eventually they stopped sending his salary.

"As a standard operating procedure, such cases are reported to our security department who are meant to handle them," a top PAEC official told ISN Security Watch.

Imran, Atiq's brother, recalls that a neighbor told him about several individuals who had been inquiring about his brother shortly before he disappeared. However, there are no witnesses to testify as to whether they saw Atiq being taken away.

More mysterious disappearances

Since 2002, over 400 families have claimed that their loved ones were picked up by the intelligence agencies under mysterious conditions. A few lucky families received briefed phone calls from the detention centers, but the majority have not been so lucky.

Despite the high profile coverage these cases were given in Pakistan's popular daily newspaper, The News, not a single human rights group had taken up the cause.

Realizing the void, Amina Masood, the wife of a missing philanthropist and businessman Masood Ahmed Janjua, has taken her case to the streets. Her actions have led other families in similar situations to join her and set up the nongovernmental Defense of Human Rights group.

Masood Janjua, now 45, disappeared on 30 July 2005 while on his way to catch a bus to Peshawar for an Islamic study group with Tablighi Jamaat, which describes itself as a peaceful movement. His young friend, Faisal Faraz, also went missing the same day from the very same place.

Amina braved intimidation from the intelligence corps and persistently demanded that the government speak up about her missing husband and dozens of others.

Her efforts moved Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who took up the missing persons cases, forcing the government to trace around 100 missing persons - over half of whom have been released by the intelligence agencies.

The Defense Ministry, which controls Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence, finally has been summoned to the Supreme Court following the restoration of the chief justice in July after General Musharraf failed to prove severe allegations against the country’s top judge.

Some of the missing persons are Islamic militants and possibly criminals but the country's law opposes detention of any citizen without official charges followed by legal proceedings.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a mother of three children, disappeared from her Karachi residence in 2001. Unconfirmed reports suggest that she has been sent to Guantanamo Bay prison. Pakistani Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Javed Iqbal Cheema denies any knowledge of the whereabouts of Dr Aafia or Amina Masood's husband.

"We are doing our best to trace the missing persons and duly share the available information with the Supreme Court," he told ISN Security Watch via telephone.

Amina Masood does not accept the government's version. She says some of those released on orders from the Supreme Court orders have filed affidavits claiming to have seen her husband in the detention centers.

She says her family received a phone call from General Musharraf's military secretary last year promising that her husband would be freed soon.

Amina refers to a letter from Dr Imran Munir, who clearly stated he had met Masood Janjua in a detention center in the Mangla cantonment, around 90 kilometers from Islamabad. Imran has been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of espionage and the Supreme Court has ordered authorities to bring him before the court.

Dr Imran Munir's family claims that he is being punished for falling in love with the daughter of a brigadier who had invited him over for dinner on the same night that the 24-year-old went missing.

Charged or released

Lawyers for the missing argue that all of them should be charged and tried in open court or released.

In its annual report on human rights, the US State Department has acknowledged the disappearances. "There was an increase of politically motivated disappearances. Police and security forces held prisoners incommunicado and refused to provide information on their whereabouts, particularly in terrorism and national security cases."

Amnesty, Asia Watch and Human Rights Watch have been far more critical of forced disappearances during the Musharraf regime.

Many of the missing persons belong to nationalist outfits, fighting for the rights of under-developed areas such as Sindh and Balochistan. The government accuses these nationalists of receiving funding and training from Afghanistan and India.

The nationalist groups base their politics on ethnicity and regionalism. Historians use the term nationalism to refer to this historical transition and to the emergence and predominance of nationalist ideology. Prominent among these in Pakistan are the Balochistan Liberation Army and Mahajar Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Due to Amina Masood's relentless courage and humiliating revelations in the wake of a major judicial crisis, the country's Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence have faced the worst blows ever.

The death of Saud Memon, a Karachi cloth merchant, two weeks after being dumped near his house after four years of detention, further exposed the spy agencies' dubious activities.

Memon was picked up in Pretoria, South Africa, by US forces after the remains of Daniel Pearl were found on his barren land along the Super Highway. After US investigators failed to find any link between Memon and Pearl's killers, he was handed over to the Pakistani security agencies in January 2006 in Karachi.</>

The 44-year-old was brought before a Supreme Court bench on 4 May that year on a stretcher, his eyes looking blank and saliva spilling out of his mouth.

Weighing only 18 kilograms, Memon met a tragic death in a hospital in Karachi at the hands of alleged mental and physical torture.

Affidavits submitted in the Supreme Court by Pakistani citizens released by the intelligence agencies suggest that Saud was physically weak but had no mental or psychological problem after returning from US detention.

Mehmood Memon, Saud's younger brother, told ISN Security Watch via telephone from Karachi, "We are extremely terrified … Saud was dumped on the roadside with an implicit message: keep your mouth shut or else..."

In Rawalpindi, Amina Masood says she is receiving abusive telephonic calls and SMS messages threatening her life should she further pursue the release of missing persons.

"More recently, we are being informed through friends that Masood has been sent to Guantanamo Bay, but no such statement is furnished before the Supreme Court," Amina tells ISN Security Watch.

Around 100 Pakistanis are thought to be still detained in Guantanamo Bay, even after the release of some 90 Pakistanis over the past few months.

"Musharraf himself … has a son, Bilal, a daughter and grandchildren. He should be able to feel our agony and pain," pleads Atiq's semi-illiterate, bewildered mother.

"The least that can suffice is a word about our dear one's life and health," she speaks for herself and many others sitting beside her outside the Parliament building in a silent protest.

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Naveed Ahmad is a senior correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Besides reporting for Pakistani TV channel, Geo News and Germany’s DW-TV, he is also a special correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers group in the US.