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| January 22, 2007 | Monday | Muharram 02, 1428 |
About 200 people missing: HRCP
HYDERABAD, Jan 21: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Chairperson Asma Jehangir has said that the commission will soon file a constitutional petition challenging the enforced disappearances of around 200 people, including women, all over the country.
Speaking to journalists after presiding over a seminar on the state of human rights in Sindh organised by HRCP's Special Task Force (STF) at a local hotel on Sunday she said that she could not give the exact number of missing people as it kept changing every day because people were still being picked up without any reason.
"Roughly speaking, there are around 200 missing people including women. Some of the women reached HRCP and narrated their tale of wrongful confinement at Rawalpindi police station and how they were taken to military headquarters for interrogation," said Ms Jehangir
She said that that the commission would file a writ petition in next 10 days, seeking recovery of missing people and added that despite mounting pressure the government was not ready to disclose their whereabouts. "When intelligence agencies are given free reign they are bound to misuse the state apparatus," she said.
She ruled out any change in the attitude of landlords towards bonded labour in the presence of what he said ‘a wadera chief minister’.
She called for abolition of capital punishment and said that Punjab toppedd the provinces in awarding death penalties. Elsewhere in the world capital punishment was awarded only in rare cases, she said.
She avoided disclosing the reasons which led to the sacking of former STF coordinator Nasreen Shakeel Pathan, wife of late STF coordinator Shakeel Pathan, one of the founding members of HRCP and said it was a matter between employer and employee. “It was council's decision to remove her and if she had any reservations she was free to move the court,” she added.
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