KARACHI: Manu Bheel, a poor peasant belonging to the scheduled caste, whose 11 family members have been missing for the past 18 years, once again shared details of his unusual case with members of the media at a press conference organised by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday.

“I have left no stone unturned in search for my family, who were abducted in broad daylight from a farm in Jhuddo taluka in Mirpurkhas district in 1998. I have gone to police, to elders in my area and I have been knocking on the doors of the law but my parents, my wife and my children are nowhere to be found. I have also gone on extended hunger strikes but to no avail. If a well-to-do person goes missing from your big city, people will move heaven and earth for his or her recovery, but here my entire family have vanished from Mirpurkhas and no one cares. With no family, I have no home ... I have no life,” Manu pleaded.

“They were kidnapped. I know because there have also been confessions from a couple of men, there have been arrests, too, but despite all this, there has been no progress in locating my family members. My parents were old. They may not even be alive today, but what about my children, my wife?” he asked.

“Meanwhile, instead of helping me, there have been false cases lodged against me to create hurdles in my way. I am a very poor man. I don’t mean anyone harm. All I want is my family back,” he said.

Offering more information about Manu’s case, Karamat Ali of Piler said that Jhuddo police that was under the thumb of local landlords initially refused to even register the kidnapping case, but after interventions by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) the case was registered. Later, the police presented a challan in the court of the district and sessions judge against nine suspects, including Abdul Rehman Marri, Chaudhry Bashir, Hashim and Natho. After hearing about it, in 2006, former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took a suo motu notice following which the police had to arrest some suspects nominated in the case including the main suspect and politically influential landlord of Sanghar. “But due to the judicial crisis in 2007, the suo motu case could not move further and the peasant’s family members remained missing. During this time Mano Bheel went on hunger strike which continued for about 1,287 days. Later, the district and sessions court of Mirpurkhas disposed of the kidnapping case and ordered the release of all the suspects on the pretext that the applicants did not appear in the case. But no summons were issued to Manu Bheel. Even the police did not inform him about the case hearing in Mirpurkhas,” Karamat Ali explained.

Now Piler, through senior lawyer Faisal Siddiqi, has challenged the Mirpurkhas district court’s judgement in the Sindh High Court. The next hearing of the case is fixed for February 11.

“Kidnapping of a citizen is a heinous crime under the Pakistani law and it is the duty of the police to protect the lives of all citizens. The government, too, should look into recovering the poor peasant’s family,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016