TACTICS found in some of the world’s most repressive states continue without check in an ostensibly democratic Pakistan. This time it is two young men originally hailing from Khuzdar who were abducted from their home in Karachi on Thursday. One of them, Mumtaz Sajidi, is a final-year student of the Karachi University and the other his younger brother, Kamran Sajidi. The raid, according to another brother of the two, was conducted by men in plainclothes and in police uniform, who refused to identify themselves or give any motive for taking them away. Despite the presence of witnesses to the crime, police would not register an FIR, a disinterest typical in cases of enforced disappearance. The family insisted that the young men were not associated with any political party or ethnic or religious group. The only link that could in any way hint at a possible motive for what had befallen them was that Mumtaz had taken part in meetings organised to press for the release of another missing student, Sagheer Ahmed Baloch, who was ‘picked up’ last November from the university premises. It seems a public campaign is about the only option those seeking a safe return of the missing persons are left with. This latest incident could well be a message for those who still have it in them to demand a halt to this illegal practice. They are exposed to great dangers themselves.

The police state that activists and others had been complaining existed in parts of the country is expanding. From the remote, neglected regions, it is spreading with purpose and intensity to places more visible. A Pakistani does not have to entertain any rebellious thoughts, let alone challenge any old and oppressive plank in the system to qualify for an early morning knock on their door by men in plainclothes who believe they lie outside the ambit of the law. What else can one conclude from the relentless pursuit of Pakistani citizens for reasons that no one seems obliged to explain? Who will answer for their families’ agony while their loved ones are missing? This is the darkest area in a Pakistan that claims to be striving to establish an order based on fairness and transparency. And it must be exposed by a judiciary which comprises men who, over and above being beholden to the legal text, claim to act as sincere, protective elders of the people of this country. 

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2018