PM says blaming state for missing persons not justified

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwarul Haq Kakar told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday that taking the entire state as criminal because of the missing persons issue was not correct, stressing that an armed resistance was going on in Balochistan.

Kakar appeared in the IHC on court orders during the hearing of a case pertaining to the missing Baloch students. The court was informed that 11 more students had been recovered, while only four had yet to be traced.

During the hearing, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani remarked that when people went missing, the state of Pakistan was blamed. The judge added that people had reached their homes because of the efforts of the authorities. However, he also said that state institutions were not above the law.

Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan presented a report about the recovery of missing Baloch students. He said that among the 59 missing students, 11 more had been recovered, and the authorities concerned were tracing the remaining four.

Among the 11 more recovered students, AGP Awan said that two of them were with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Afghanistan, while nine faced cases against them and were in the custody of the Counter-terrorism Department (CTD).

Prime Minister Kakar told the court that the country faced an armed struggle in Balochistan, where paramilitary forces had been deployed as counter-terrorism agencies. He also said that when the people were asked about the missing persons, they would present 5,000 names.

Kakar recalled that a former chief justice [of the Balochistan High Court] was martyred while offering prayers in Balochistan. “People were burnt alive on a bus on the Coastal Highway, but no one remembered the violation of human rights at that time,” he said.

“People were taken out of buses and asked their names, and if someone’s name was Chaudhry or Gujjar, they were killed, but still, they said that there should not be profiling of students on a linguistic basis. People have the right to live. The Constitution requires its citizens to be unconditionally loyal to the state,” he added.

Kakar also told the court that 90,000 people were martyred in acts of terrorism, but not even 90 people were punished. Justice

Kayani replied that it was also a failure of the state institutions that they could not prosecute the perpetrators. He emphasised that if there was a lacuna in the law, it needed to be improved. The law should be followed,” he continued. Courts have also given punishments to very hardened terrorists, and no court would protect the non-state actors.

Justice Kayani told the prime minister that there was no need to go to Balochistan because a lot had been seen in the federal capital. He then pointed to a senior journalist in the courtroom, saying that he was picked up in Islamabad in broad daylight.

Advocate Iman Mazari told the court that when it came to the missing persons issue, it was linked to terrorists, which became very painful for the families of the missing persons. She said that the impression that it was a propaganda against the state was not correct.

There were reports from the commission on missing persons that institutions were involved in enforced disappearances, she told the court.

The judge said that the court would direct the questions to the committee of intelligence agencies in the future.

On that, Kakar said this was the executive’s domain, adding that the government had challenged the order for the formation of the committee, comprising heads of three premier intelligence agencies.

Later, the court sought details of the cases against the persons in CTD custody and adjourned the hearing.