Enforced disappearances have become part of the day in the terror-torn Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.
The province tops in the cases of disappearances. According to a government commission’s figures, the highest number of missing persons is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 3380 persons are reported missing.
The second highest number is 2192, which is in Balochistan. The third number is 1759 in Sindh and the least number is dissappearances is in Punjab, which turns out to be 1551.
According to the figures given on the official website of the government of Pakistan to identify forcibly disappeared persons in Pakistan, as of January 31 of this year, 9294 cases of missing persons have been registered with the commission, a total of 3804 have been released and 241 bodies were found dead and 623 are in prison.
Human rights workers argue that the people are still facing enforced disappearance in Pakistan. According to them, these people are kept illegally in detention centres, which is a gross violation of human rights.
The Pashtun Tahafuz movement and the fighters for the Baloch people point out that thousands of people have been forcibly disappeared in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, which was a matter of urgent concern. They accused the powerful intelligence agencies of the Pakistani army of forcibly abducting people, but the army has however repeatedly rejected these criticisms.
The mother of one of the disappeared persons, Sayed Pari, says in this state always the poor people’s children are lost and face these enforced disappearances, but sons of the rich are never lost”, Sayed Pari, the mother observed.
Bibi Hawa became mentally ill after her husband went missing on her new wedding day. She was unable to speak because of grief, she was crying and wanted and requested the government to release her husband.
Amanullah, the father of the missing person, is an old man and sick, and can’t do any job now. “I am old and idlessly sitting in the house with only hope of God”, he observed.