Missing persons

According to the news about missing people found in Afghanistan (June10), Justice (R) Javed Iqbal who is heading the commission of enforced disappearances has disclosed that around 15 Baloch people that were found to be among the missing persons were in Paktia and Pul-i-Charkhi jails in Afghanistan. Also, that some other that were included in the missing list were known to be living in other countries. The case of Shakeel Turabi’s son who had gone missing and was finally found to have joined the militants in North Waziristan exemplifies that the missing persons issue is more complex than it appears and that it is being used by some to make scores against sother groups.

The Interior minister had also asserted last year that around 200 missing persons had been traced that were taken across the border to be trained by the Indian spy agencies. A Pakistani writer has rightly analyzed that “army bashing, instead of offering issue-based criticism, is now the vogue and finds many buyers on all sides”.

The missing persons case has taken an alarming intensity and a one sided approach without providing hard facts to the public. Obviously stemming from a protracted period of deprivation, the province is ripe for foreign exploitation keeping in view its natural wealth and geo-strategic positioning. It is, perhaps time that we open our eyes to view the larger picture where our own government and agencies may be operating as a microcosm with limited power of their own. The clandestine activity carried out by Indians inside Pakistani soil is no state secret as it harbors a hidden Pakistan centric foreign policy to maintain its dominance in the region. The consequences of such covert operations have been borne by Pakistan in the form of the tearing off of East Pakistan. These separatist groups, like the Mukti Bahnis, are being trained, provided safe sanctuaries and ample funding through the multitude of Indian consulates peppered all across the Pakistani borders.

Christine Fair in an unbiased analysis also confirms that these multiple Indian consulates in Iran and Afghanistan are surely not issuing visas as their main activity. They are in fact running their covert operations and missions along the Pakistan border. There is a need for the government to take over this problem in earnest to expose the true face behind this grotesque act of violence to rid the Balochi people of the insecurity and paranoia it breeds to pave the way for disaster.

—Rawalpindi