March 10, 2006	Friday	Safar 9, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

LAHORE, March 9: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has expressed its serious concern over an increasing number of persons who went missing for the past two years or so and their families were suffering miseries.

In a statement issued here, HRCP Secretary-General Syed Iqbal Haider said the commission had received reports of at least 12 persons missing in Balochistan and had made the details public.

He said reports had also been received of persons allegedly ‘picked up’ in Punjab and Sindh. The agony of families who had received no news of their kins for many months could only be imagined.

He said that most recently, the HRCP had received a complaint from the family of young Baloch writer Dr Hanif Sharif, the secretary general of Balochistan Academy, Turbat. Quoting information provided by the family, he said that Dr Sharif was ‘picked up’ by six armed masked men on Nov 18, 2005, from a restaurant in Turbat, where he was sitting along with some of his friends.

The eye witnesses believed that at least one of the ‘abductors’ belonged to military intelligence, Mr Haider said and added that police had refused to register an FIR of the incident.

Since then, there had neither been any information about Dr Sharif, nor he had been produced in any court of law. His father Muhammad Sharif, mother and younger brother Ghani Sharif were currently observing a hunger strike outside the Karachi Press Club.

Mr Haider called upon the Balochistan and federal authorities to trace Dr Sharif or release him if he was under detention. If Dr Sharif was accused of any crime, he should be proceeded against under the law, he demanded.

The HRCP secretary-general reiterated the demand that all citizens be accorded justice as per provisions of law.

The cases in which persons had been picked up, detained illegally and subjected to torture were horrifying and deserved government’s immediate attention so that the dangerous trend of ‘disappearances’ could be checked, he added.