ISLAMABAD, Feb 8: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has accused the government and its security apparatus of exercising a ‘horrific pattern’ of forced disappearances of its opponents, and described it as a ‘new form of human rights abuse’ in the country.

The commission’s annual report for 2006 launched on Thursday described the forced disappearances ‘a highly disturbing trend’, which was increasing at an alarming rate. Citizens across the country were being picked up by intelligence agencies and taken to be detained in secret locations while some had been handed over to the US, the report said.

Spread over 340 pages, the report details the rights issues in 18 separate categories, ranging from law and administration of justice to law and order situation, rape and other atrocities against women, rights of children, restrictions of political participation, rights of labour, and issues of health and environment.

However, the report’s real emphasis was on the deteriorating situation in Balochistan and Waziristan, the use of military to curb political and religious militancy, and abduction and disappearance of opponents, mainly from the violence-hit areas.

According to the report, the trend of organised disappearances started around 2001 and since then at least 400 persons had gone missing. However, the commission feared the figure was only ‘the tip of the iceberg’.

The report said people suspected of being involved in attacks on the president, the Baloch nationalist struggle and those struggling for the rights of Sindhi people were frequently targeted. The largest number of disappearances, it said, was reported in Balochistan.

Prolonged and illegal detention and torture and humiliation of the detainees were growing problems, the report said.

Condemning the breakdown of law and order, the HRCP chairperson Asma Jahangir said that most of the disappeared were not suspected militants but government opponents. “Torture of the missing persons is the rule rather than exception.”

She said that the HRCP had filed a petition on behalf of the families of the missing persons. “But many are too frightened to come forward and talk about their relatives kidnapped by intelligence agencies.”

HRCP’s secretary-general Iqbal Haider said that despite public protests and demand by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the whereabouts of hundreds of missing people still remained unknown.

Sketching a depressing picture of the “unfortunate state of affairs”, Mr Iqbal said there was no mechanism or institution to redress human rights abuses.