Editorial for Business Recorder. Truncated version appeared in the paper on October 3, 2018

Still ‘missing’

A Supreme Court (SC) three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar while taking up the matter of missing persons on September 26, 2018, issued a directive to constitute a two-member special bench to supervise long running cases of ‘missing persons’ before the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) and ensure the implementation of production orders issued by the CIED. The special bench comprising Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik and Justice Sardar Tariq Masood of the SC will also monitor the CIED’s proceedings. Advocate Inam-ur-Rahim informed the SC that the CIED had issued at least 30 orders for the production of ‘missing persons’ after receiving reports from the joint investigation teams yet none of them had ever been produced before the CIED. Citing the case of Javed Ghouri, the counsel said the CIED had issued production orders at least twice but to no avail. Later, it was revealed that he had been transferred to an internment centre and then was sentenced to death by a military court. The CJP revealed that he had presided over a meeting of a high-powered committee on August 3, 2018 attended by the Director Generals of ISI, MI, Pakistan Rangers, CIED chairman, federal interior and defence secretaries and provincial police chiefs. Two major decisions were taken. One, in future no officer below the rank of brigadier would represent the intelligence agencies concerned before the CIED. Two, the CIED would decide cases as early as possible. The CJP said a follow up meeting would be called again. Shortly after the August 3 meeting, the CJP had warned that if no improvement was seen in arresting the alarming situation, the SC might consider taking up the missing persons cases as a serious violation of human rights under Article 184(3). Chairperson of the Defence of Human Rights Amina Masood Janjua informed the SC that the CIED initially was dealing with 135 cases but the number had surged to 5,000, indicating that people were still being ‘disappeared’. She urged the SC to take up the cases the CIED seemed reluctant to touch, particularly cases related to Swat. The CIED claimed to be waiting for a government policy in this regard. In many of the cases disposed of by the CIED, she went on, their families had reservations and their agony was being ignored. The CJP regretted that there was no mechanism for the SC to take up cases disposed of by the CIED but asked Ms Janjua to furnish a list of old cases that should also be referred to the CIED.

The scandal of enforced disappearances has lingered on our horizon for almost two decades. What began as a ‘practice’ in the context of the Balochistan nationalist insurgency has by now spread to virtually the whole country. The pattern has been that in cases taken up by the CIED or even the superior courts, the intelligence agencies baldly deny knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing persons. The CIED and the courts have failed not just to have their production orders implemented, they have also failed to penetrate the cocoon of impunity in which the intelligence agencies have wrapped themselves and order these agencies in denial to investigate and get to the bottom of the matter. The CIED reports it has dealt with 5,290 cases till July 2018, of which 3,519 had been ‘disposed of’ by August 31 while 1,830 cases are still pending. From the proceedings before the SC, it seems quite clear that what the CIED classifies as ‘disposed of’ does not always satisfy the victim families. While the number of missing persons has been a bone of contention between the authorities and the families, human rights advocates and others, it needs to be stated that whatever the correct number of cases that fall within the category of ‘missing’ (i.e. ‘disappeared’), even one enforced disappearance is a case of one too many of a cruel, illegal, brutish practice that blights so many lives and casts a black shadow on the country’s reputation. As the weeping mother of a son missing for nine years tearfully told the SC, if her son was guilty of something, let him be trued according to the law. This reflects the agony of families left without closure as to the whereabouts and condition of their loved ones, a torture truly unimaginable. No civilised society worth the name can put up with this aberration forever. The CIED, with the backing of the SC, must ensure the intelligence agencies either produce the missing or conduct supervised investigations to discover their whereabouts and state. And while we are at it, perhaps it is time for parliament to revisit the military courts set up after the APS massacre, whose extension after the sunset clause expired has not improved their effectiveness or results. Seldom has a military court verdict been upheld by the courts on appeal. Time then, perhaps, for them to be done away with.