ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) has finalised its recommendations to resolve the lingering issue of missing persons in the country, but these will be made public only after the consent of three political parties whose representatives were not present in the committee’s meeting on Saturday.

Talking to Dawn after the committee’s in-camera meeting, PCNS chairman Raza Rabbani claimed that the members belonging to all the political parties, excluding the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), PPP-Sherpao and Balochistan National Party-Awami (BNP-A), had unanimously approved the document containing over a dozen recommendations.

Mr Rabbani said he had been authorised by the committee to get the signatures of the representatives of the MQM, PPP-S and BNP-A on the final report of the committee within a week time after which the report would be made public. He said the report would also be presented before the two houses of parliament and to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.

Without elaborating, he said the PCNS had finalised such recommendations which could fully be implemented and enforced. These recommendations, he said, had been prepared in the light of the parliamentary resolutions on the issue of the missing persons.

Moreover, he said, the PCNS had taken care of the viewpoints of the family members of the missing persons while drafting its report.

According to sources, the PCNS in its recommendations had stressed the need for carrying out some legislative work to curb the incidents of enforced disappearances.

It was soon after Mr Rabbani’s re-election as the PCNS chairman in March that the committee members had decided to take up the lingering issue of forced disappearance of hundreds of people, commonly known as ‘missing persons’, from various parts of the country.

The terms ‘missing persons’ have been in use in the country since the time former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf announced its support to the US in the war on terror after the 9/11 incident.

The relatives and family members of the missing persons allege that intelligence agencies and security agencies have picked up these people allegedly for having links with terrorist organisations. The cases of missing persons have mostly been reported from the troubled provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in the country’s tribal areas.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has been hearing various petitions on the issue of missing persons and it had also established a judicial commission on the matter. The family members of the missing persons have been protesting for the past many years.

Last year, the PCNS had prepared recommendations on the new terms of engagement with the US which resulted in the resumption of Nato supplies to Afghanistan through Pakistani soil after a thorough debate on the PCNS report during the joint session of the Senate and the National Assembly.

The PCNS had also taken up the memo controversy involving former Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and a US businessman Mansoor Ijaz, but so far the issue remains to be resolved.

On Oct 31, the PCNS members received a briefing on the role of British intelligence agencies in dealing with terrorism cases from a visiting top British expert on anti-terror laws, Lord Alexander Charles Carlile.

Lord Carlile, a barrister from the UK and a former independent reviewer of the British anti-terrorism laws, had informed the PCNS members that it was the police force and forensic experts who on the basis of intelligence went out to find and collect the actual hard evidence which then became a basis of the trial in his country.

Mr Rabbani had stated that the briefing had been arranged because the members were interested to know as to how the UK had integrated the protection of fundamental human rights while doing anti-terror legislation keeping in mind that the law did not lose its spirit and at the same time did not allow the state to be over-intrusive in the privacy of its citizens and protect the fundamental human rights as provided in the constitution.

Mr Rabbani had previously headed three important parliamentary committees and commissions ---- on constitutional reforms, Balochistan issue and implementation of the 18th Constitution Amendment.