















2K Shares

Members of the Shia community have staged a sit-in outside President Arif Alvi’s residence in Karachi to demand the release of missing Shia persons. The protestors vow to not leave the area until the president listens to them and promises immediate action.

According to reports, the protesters are demanding the release of 40 missing persons in Sindh; 38 from Karachi and two from other cities of the province. Hundreds of protesters have gathered outside President Arif Alvi’s residence.

A woman, whose two sons were missing, held their pictures in her hands and asked if they looked like ‘terrorists, criminals or target killers’. She said that one of them was a second-year student, while the other had just started his professional life.

“Do they look their terrorists, criminals or target killers to you? Is this why I brought them up and gave them the best of education so that they would be taken away from me?”

In solidarity with families of the Shia forcibly disappeared protesting o/side Pakistani pres @ArifAlvi's residence in #Karachi. #Shia Missing Persons' Movement has 40 cases registered w/ them, 38 from KHI and 2 from other cities in Sindh.#endenforceddisappearances #Pakistan pic.twitter.com/DlztEB0kBI — Rabia Mehmood – رابعہ (@Rabail26) April 28, 2019

According to the BBC, ‘missing people’ are one of the most sensitive issues in Pakistan. According to official data, there are more than 1,500 unresolved cases of enforced disappearances in the country.

In a Senate Standing Committee meeting in March this year, Senator Rehman Malik said he was informed by the Commission on Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances that the number of missing persons dealt with by the Commission from March 2011 to 31st Dec 2018 was 3551.

He said that as per the details, 1577 returned home, 691 are confined in internment centres, 440 are in different jails for terrorism and criminal charges, 184 dead bodies were found and 659 were not cases of enforced disappearances.