‘Non-combatant detainees’: Khawaja Asif knows nothing, say TTP

TTP spokesperson says Khawaja Asif does not know the exact number of the secret detention centres and their locations.

ISLAMABAD:

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) heaped scorn at Defence Minister Khwaja Asif for refuting its claim that the security forces had detained women and children linked with the grouping.

Even though he is the defence minister, Khawaja Asif “does not know the exact number of the secret detention centres and their locations, which is why he is clueless about the number of detainees there”, Taliban spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid said on Monday.

The controversy over the women and children started after the Taliban suggested to the government, through their intermediaries, to set free all the non-combatant Taliban-linked people in internment centres.

Shahidullah Shahid claimed that there are “hundreds of secret detention centres have been established across the country, especially in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. No one can turn a blind eye to that fact.”

He said the government, through the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, has accorded legal status to these “inhuman and unlawful” detention centres. “Khawaja Asif sahib should tell us how many missing persons he has presented in court in line with his own law,” the TTP spokesman asked.

He also recalled the chief justice’s warning to the prime minister and the defence minister for not producing the missing persons. “We do not know on whose behest is the defence minister sabotaging the peace talks. Or if there is any confusion on the part of the government?”

Shahidullah said the Taliban committee has handed over a list of some of their non-combatant prisoners and it is now the responsibility of the government’s committee to find out where they are. “We will present more names if there is any progress,” he added. He also said that most of these women and children belong to the tribal areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2014.