Enforced disappearances: Hoping to see their loved ones, families light candles

A silent protest was organised on Thursday outside the press club.


Our Correspondent January 24, 2013
DESIGN: SIDRAH MOIZ KHAN/FILE

KARACHI: About a year ago, Asim Ameen went to offer Isha prayers at a mosque located close to his house in Dhoraji. He never returned.

On Thursday, his wife, Dr Faheema Asim, along with several others whose family members have gone missing, lit candles outside the press club and held pictures of their loved ones aloft as they silently protested against state agencies. “My three-year-old daughter has thalassemia and we need money for her bone marrow transplant. After her father’s disappearance, it has been hard to pay for her treatment,” she told The Express Tribune.

Another person present at the vigil was Unais Waheed, who was searching for not one but two family members. His father, Ajmal, and uncle, Usama, have been missing since July 2011. “They are with Pakistani security agencies. But they are being kept at undisclosed location,” he said. “My father, who was a science teacher in a government school in Korangi, was our bread winner.”

Mohammad Hussain Baloch, the coordinator of Defense of Human Rights Karachi, the organisation which arranged the vigil, said that about 70 people have gone missing from the city and the actual number can be higher. “The courts have proved that state agencies are behind the missing person issue.”

He said that the reports of the parliamentary committee on the missing person issue is certainly a positive step, but it is not enough.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2013.

COMMENTS (1)

stranger | 11 years ago | Reply

At least if we find their bodies, we will be happy thinking they are ' safe 'someplace far far away where no epidemic or bombings or stabbings will ever touch them.

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