The "Missing" in Pakistan

Court raps Pakistan over missing
BBC - December 2, 2006

Pakistan's government says it has been able to locate 20 of the 41 missing people whose families allege they are being held by intelligence agencies.
The government has told the Supreme Court that 10 of these men have already returned home.

The court has given the government a further two weeks to provide "complete information" on the others.

Since 2001, the government has been accused of holding dozens of people in custody without charge.

The Supreme Court bench - headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhury - ruled that it was the duty of the government to trace its missing citizens and inform the courts.

Rebuked

After the government lawyer told the court that of the 41, 20 were now accounted for, the Chief Justice directed government representatives to co-ordinate with the intelligence agencies and provide details about the remaining 21 people at the next hearing, scheduled for 15 December.

The court also rebuked the government for submitting a plea to close the case.


The court has been hearing a petition filed by an organisation called Defence of Human Rights, which represents the families of the missing people.

A spokesman for the group told the BBC that several hundreds of people have been picked up since the start of the US-led war on terror in 2001.

Relatives of those missing say some of them were picked up for alleged links with al-Qaeda.

Correspondents say initially the reason for detaining people was the so-called war on terror, but increasingly nationalists from the southern provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan have also disappeared.

In September, human rights organisation Amnesty International accused Pakistan of detaining hundreds of alleged terror suspects without legal process.

The group said some were tortured or otherwise ill-treated, others were sold to the US military, and some others vanished without trace.

Some of the missing were known al-Qaeda suspects, but others included women and children, Amnesty said.

Pakistan denies torture and enforced disappearances, but a government spokesman told the BBC that detentions without legal process were taking place.