KARACHI, April 3: Two youths, believed to have been picked up by the personnel of intelligence agencies from different localities, have not returned to their homes and their families are running from pillar to post to ascertain their whereabouts.
One of the youths is Faisal Sami, 28, who had been whisked away from Model Colony some five months back. The other one is Sajid Shakir, 25, taken away by armed men in a police mobile van from a shop in Block 13-D, Gulshan-i-Iqbal.
Faisal Sami, who holds a diploma in civil engineering, was picked up on November 10, 2005 along with his younger brother, Fahad Sami, 21, and a friend, Abdul Haseeb. Armed men in civvies, in a police mobile van and a private vehicle came to a shop –- a real estate outlet –- and asked about Faisal. They picked up him and Abdul Haseeb from the shop. Fahad, who was in a nearby shop, saw the action and tried to argue with the armed people, who whisked away all the three to an unknown destination, Faisal’s father, Samiuddin Khan, told Dawn.
Mr Sami said that as soon as the area people informed him about the incident, he rushed to the area police station where he was told that a case of kidnapping could not be registered if the boys were picked up by personnel of an agency. Next morning, Fahad and Abdul Haseeb returned home but they could not tell the family about the whereabouts of Faisal. They told their father that they were kept blindfolded and did not know where they had been taken.
Mr Sami approached the higher authorities in provincial and federal governments and even wrote letters to ascertain the whereabouts of his son but to no avail.
The area police, when contacted by Dawn said a report about Faisal’s ‘going missing’ was registered and efforts were being made to locate him. “We are not aware if he has been picked up by intelligence agencies,” a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity.
Mr Sami maintained that his son was not involved in any criminal activities. “I do not know why he has been picked up. He is such a nice boy and all the people in the locality are witness to his clean character. We have been living in Model Colony for the last 40 years,” he said.
After the case of Faisal Sami, another youth in his mid-twenties, was picked up from a shop where he works. The family of the youth, Sajid Shakir, 25, staged protest against the illegal detention of the youth in front of the Karachi Press Club here on Monday.
The elderly father of the youth, Shakir Ali, a fruit vendor, said that his son worked in a bookshop and lived in Rexer Lane in Ranchhor Line. He said that Yunus, owner of the bookshop, informed the family members that four armed men in civvies came to the shop in a white police mobile van and took Sajid with them on March 22, this year. They just told Yunus that Sajid was wanted for questioning in a matter and he would be let off shortly. However, he has not returned home so far.
“We went to the Aziz Bhatti police station to lodge the case and they just made an entry in their roznamcha (diary). The police have not cooperated with us and we do not know where to go to ascertain the whereabouts of our son,” Mr Shakir, father of four sons and four daughters, said with tears rolling down his face.
The mother of the missing youth, Najma Begum, who has had her eyes operated a week back at a charity hospital, said: “My son is a practising Muslim and he is not involved in any criminal activity. If he has done anything wrong, we should be informed about his detention and the charges against him.”
The cases of disappearance of Faisal Sami and Sajid Shakir are not new ones as a number of people have gone missing during the past four years and have not returned to their homes as yet. Having exhausted their energies and left no stone unturned, their families are just waiting for their return.
Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a PhD in Neuro-cognitive Science, drove out of her residence in Karachi along with her three children on March 30, 2003, and did not return home. Shoaib Siddiqui, a medical student at King’s College in London, went out with some friends in Karachi on August 20, 2005 and has still to reappear.
Arifa and Saba Baloch, the so called ‘female suicide bombers’ who lived in Lyari, were picked up in June 2005 but their family has been told that “their whereabouts are not known.” So is the case of Badar and Ibrahim, brothers and real estate agents, picked up in Karachi in September 2002 and not heard of since, according to a monthly magazine.
The list goes on, not into scores but hundreds. According to newspaper reports, over 800 people are believed to have been picked up across the country since 2001. Around a hundred of them have been released while the rest are either undergoing interrogation or lying in some government lockups. But this figure is misleading as it contains only those who have been arrested in relation to Al Qaeda related activity. As such, it does not reflect the real state of affairs, with the recent resurgence of nationalist movements in Sindh and Balochistan and the arrest of their activists. If added to the Al Qaeda figure, it could easily run into a thousand, the magazine reported.