THE anguish of the families of the missing people was there for all to see on Sunday at the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry. Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar was hearing dozens of petitions filed by the relatives of those who have been missing for months, allegedly abducted by law-enforcement agencies. A large number of people, many of them women, carrying placards with pictures of their loved ones and demanding their recovery, gathered outside the court building. While in the courtroom for the hearing, several of them broke down in tears and in their emotionally charged state, levelled accusations against the law-enforcement officials that were present. While expressing sympathy for the petitioners, the chief justice told them to maintain the decorum of the court and adopt a more considered stance about what could have befallen their relatives. He also ordered law-enforcement agencies to set up a special cell to investigate the cases and proceed accordingly.

The superior judiciary has on several occasions taken notice of the flagrant violation of fundamental rights that are part and parcel of the phenomenon of enforced disappearance — even though the issue raises uncomfortable questions about the impunity with which certain elements of the state operate. Former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, in particular, was — at least for a time — considerably proactive in his efforts to bring the alleged perpetrators to task, even summoning members of the security establishment to court. Revelations have emerged over the past few years about detention centres where suspected militants have been confined for months, sometimes years, without their families knowing what had become of them. Several such individuals were in a terrible physical condition when they were finally produced; some, it is known, did not survive the treatment they were meted out while in captivity. That, and the length of time that many have been missing for, should put to rest any theories about them having met with accidents or been kidnapped out of enmity. In fact, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, although proving completely ineffectual in holding anyone accountable for the practice, has done well to document the cases; it has even traced the whereabouts of some of the missing. What then, is the point of a special cell dedicated to replicating the commission’s work? Would it not be more result-oriented for the CoIoED to be sufficiently empowered and resourced so that it can fulfil its mandate?

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2018