ISLAMABAD: A draft bill to criminalize enforced disappearances, which has been with the law ministry for “vetting” for more than 18 months, is now being reviewed by the Interior Ministry with no deadline on when it will be finalized, officials have said.
The comments follow last week’s mysterious disappearance of a government official that has once more put the spotlight on cases of enforced disappearance in Pakistan.
Sajid Gondal, a joint director at the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), went missing on Thursday night, his family said. On Wednesday, he tweeted that he was back home.
In an interview with Arab News on Tuesday, Gondal’s wife, Sajeela Sajid, called his disappearance an “abduction” and said the family had no information on his whereabouts and had been told by police that there were no leads.
“If there is an allegation or charge against him, he must appear before the court,” she said.
Media reports said that unknown abductors had freed Gondal on the outskirts of Islamabad. However, on Wednesday, local TV channels quoted Gondal as saying he had spent the days in which he was missing in Pakistan’s picturesque northern areas, on a trip with friends.
Many journalists and human rights advocates questioned the explanation, asking why Gondal disappeared without a word while driving home from work and left his car unattended at the roadside, the key still in the ignition.
The finance official also made no attempt to contact his family or friends in the days he was gone.
The Islamabad High Court has also raised questions about Gondal’s disappearance, saying this week that it will summon the prime minister to provide an explanation if the government failed to safeguard citizens’ rights.
“Abduction of citizens and failure on the part of law enforcement agencies to trace their whereabouts and prosecute and punish the perpetrators of this most heinous crime appear to have become a norm,” the court said.
“There is no accountability. The protectors of fundamental rights have become silent spectators to this most abhorrent violation of fundamental rights.”
Investigation officer Malik Naeem told the court he was investigating 50 cases of missing persons in Islamabad alone.
A federal commission of inquiry on enforced disappearances set up by the government in 2011 listed 6,506 cases nationwide by the end of 2019. Despite the pledges of successive Pakistani governments to criminalize the practice, there has been little movement on legislation and people continue to be abducted.
“The Ministry of Human Rights bill is aimed at criminalizing enforced disappearance as a separate, autonomous offense,” Rabiya Javeri Agha, secretary at the human rights ministry, told Arab News.
When asked about the status of the bill, she said it was with the ministry of law for “vetting.” The law ministry confirmed it had received the bill in January 2019.
The bill sat at the law ministry until last month, but about four weeks ago it was passed on to the interior ministry for another review, according to Lalarukh Waheed, a spokesperson for interior ministry, who said that the bill was now at the interior secretary’s office for review.
Despite repeated calls and text messages, officials at the law and interior ministries did not disclose details of current discussions on the bill or why there was a delay in processing it.
Shireen Mazari, the human rights minister, also declined repeated requests for an interview.
‘Specific law required’
Ali Nawaz Chowhan, chairman of the government’s National Commission for Human Rights, said that delays in introducing the new law had put the credibility of the government at risk.
“Enforced disappearances have tarnished our international image, and this will continue till we put an end to the menace,” he told Arab News.
Families of disappeared persons currently have two legal remedies, barrister Omer Malik said. “They can file a petition of habeas corpus with a session or high court, which would require a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, or register an abduction case with the police.”
Malik said: “These laws are effective to recover a missing or abducted person from the custody of civilians.”
He added that “in the case of state agencies, they simply deny having custody of a person, and then police or judiciary have no specific powers to locate a person in their custody and get them retrieved.”
Pakistan’s secret services are often blamed for enforced disappearances, though they deny the allegations.
Last year, the military said it had set up a special cell on missing persons at its headquarters in Rawalpindi. The army also issued a statement sympathizing with families of missing people, while saying that some may have joined militant groups and “not every person missing is attributable to the state.”
Meanwhile, journalists and rights defenders remain under threat.
In July, journalist Matiullah Jan, a well-known critic of the Pakistani security establishment, government and judiciary, was abducted by gunmen in state security uniforms outside the school where his wife works. He was returned in 24 hours.
In November last year, former Amnesty International consultant Idris Khattak, who has spent a lifetime working on enforced disappearances, was snatched in broad daylight from his car in northern Pakistan.
Over half a year after he was last heard from, military intelligence finally admitted that Khattak was in custody and would be charged under the 1923 Official Secrets Act, which carries punishment of 14 years in prison or death. Authorities have not provided details of the activities for which he has been charged.
In January this year, the defense ministry accepted before the Lahore High Court that lawyer Inamur Rahim was in custody and being tried under the Official Secrets Act.
Rahim has filed numerous petitions against the practice of missing persons and was abducted from his home in December 2019.
In December 2010, in a landmark court session, the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence agencies confessed before the Supreme Court that 11 missing inmates of the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi were in their custody and being tried under the Army Act. The 11 men were also produced before the court by military officials.
Families await answers
In the provincial capital of Balochistan, a southwestern province racked by insurgency, a daily sit-in against enforced disappearances began on June 28, 2009.
Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun community, 30 million strong, has been leading peaceful protests across the country for over two years, seeking details on hundreds of young men who they say have “disappeared.”
Talia Khattak, the 20-year-old daughter of Khattak, who is also Pashtun, said she was “emotionally broken” worrying about the whereabouts and health of her father, who is a diabetes patient and requires daily medication.
Khattak has a long career working on the documentation of human rights abuses and enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Though authorities have admitted Khattak is in their custody, his daughter said the family had still not been allowed to see him.
“I am living a life of hopelessness,” she said. “I don’t know if my father is alive and will he ever return home.”
Khattak’s lawyer, Latif Afridi, said the Peshawar High Court was expected to take up the case in September.
“Under the law, any security agency is bound to produce an accused before the court within 24 hours,” he told Arab News.
Outside the court this week, the mother of SECP official Gondal sat on a footpath and said she only had God to turn to.
“How will they face God?” she said, referring to her son’s abductors and crying in a video that has gone viral on social media.
“Don’t they know one day they will be facing their Lord? The highest court is God’s court. I seek justice from my Lord. God ask them, God should punish them.”