Families of missing persons deserve sympathy

Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor on Friday in a post shared on his personal Twitter account wrote: “Our hearts beat with the families of every missing person. We share their pain and we are with them in the process of tracing them.” He added: “Thousands of soldiers have laid down their lives for the security of fellow Pakistanis. Hence; can’t harm anyone. Let none exploit the issue of missing persons on whatever context.” On Wednesday, 36 relatives of missing persons from the Shia community had been arrested by police from outside President Arif Alvi’s residence in Karachi following the lodging of FIR against the organisers of the sit-in on behalf of the state. On Thursday, police released 17 detained relatives of the missing persons after 12 hours of detention, head of the Missing Persons’ Relatives Committee Rashid Rizvi said.
The relatives had been protesting for the recovery of their missing loved ones since April 28 outside the president’s house in Karachi. Addressing a wide-ranging press conference at General Headquarters on April 29, the ISPR chief had also individually responded to the demands made by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) at its rallies and meetings and said that their third demand was the issue of missing persons. Responding to another question about missing persons, the military spokesman had reminisced about the security situation through which the country had passed and said: “We don’t want anyone to be missing, but war is ruthless. Everything is fair in love and war”. Every Pakistani including LEAs feels sympathy with families of missing persons. Unfortunately, quite a few of the so-called victims were involved in terrorism due to the chaos created by US intervention in Afghanistan.
LEAs are faced with the dilemma of protecting the witnesses. The terrorists were fully trained and skilled to use lethal weapons and posed serious threat LEAs, judges and to witnesses that provide evidence that could stand in the court of law. International Human Rights Commissions and other outfits collect data without considering domestic ground realities. In order to address the issue of missing persons, the legal system of Pakistan must be reformed to provide protection to witnesses, prosecutors and Judges. Otherwise the issue will keep haunting the government, LEAs and Human Rights Organizations, while the anti-Pakistan elements will paint Pakistan in poor light the world eye. In fact, Pakistan is victim of terrorism and is committed to fight this menace with full vigor and sincerity till its remnants are eliminated.
Most of the missing persons reportedly have had links with different terrorist organizations and due to fear of being arrested moved to far-flung areas of KPK/Balochistan. In addition, some shifted to Afghanistan and other countries to permanently settle there. Most of them are not in contact with their families, who perceive them as missing persons. Apart from that, some of the terrorists while conducting ambushes against LEAs would have been killed during action. In many cases dead bodies were taken away by their accomplices, who probably buried them at unknown places. But their families consider them under custody of intelligence agencies. Suicide bombers and unidentified persons who die during suicide attacks cannot be recognized or accounted for. Anyhow, the issue of missing persons has been blown out of proportion by the media.
Pakistan had a point when it said that some of the missing persons were getting training in India, and Hammal Khan, who according to the banned BLA funded anti-Pakistan website Balochwarna News was on the missing persons’ list. He is said to be amongst the three terrorists who conducted the attack on Pearl Continental Hotel Gwadar on Saturday, killing two guards and injuring four others, said Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) reportedly funded by Indian intelligence agency Raw claimed responsibility for the attack saying that four fighters were involved. “Our fighters have carried out this attack on Chinese and other foreign investors who were staying in PC hotel,” said Jihand Baloch, a BLA spokesperson, in a statement.