Any major breakthrough in the fate of the disappeared can only come through greater responsibility of the state. If the state somehow can improve on the way it truthfully responds to enforced disappearances and remove the shadow of uncertainty surrounding representatives of the country’s civil rights community, it will have eased the fears of the families of thousands of activists who have been missing since 2008. Such an admission may be actually a lot harder to make than we think.
The implications after all are treacherous: the whereabouts of missing individuals have been concealed for long. Now it must be understood that the state’s agencies can neither always be held liable for full disclosure nor can they offer partial disclosure on account of the ultra-sensitivity of their operations. Given that Pakistan is one of the world’s worst terrorism- affected countries has not made things much safer or easier for the authorities that have to keep the peace.
To accomplish this massive task the state must be ready sometimes to bypass the Constitution, and overlook the legal and constitutional rights of citizens. If it was to come clean on these transgressions it would earn goodwill and respect. The rights minister would do well to create a list of persons who may be under abduction. This step would spare families of missing persons much agony and the state the stigma that disappearances bring.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2018.
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