PTI writes to Kakar, CEC for release of party leaders, activists

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General Omar Ayub Khan on Tuesday urged caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar and Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja to pass immediate and clear instructions for the early release of PTI leaders and activists.

He wrote that the party leaders and activists went missing under a well-orchestrated pre-poll rigging campaign and to dismantle the PTI, the only federal political party.

In separate letters written to the caretaker PM and CEC on behalf of the PTI Core Committee, Omar said he wanted to bring to their attention the issue of enforced disappearances, which was the most serious of all violations of the law and Constitution happening right now as part of an orchestrated pre-poll election rigging campaign against the PTI.

He said that in the context of preparation for fair elections, the impunity with which individuals linked to the PTI were being illegally arrested and disappeared was perhaps the most blatant form of pre-poll rigging happening in the country. Besides, it is an exceptionally serious violation of Pakistan’s system of law and justice.

The PTI secretary general reminded that mothers, fathers, wives, brothers, sisters and children were suffering due to these enforced disappearances. Sadaqat Ali Abbasi, former PTI MNA, has been missing since September 1; Usman Dar, former PTI SAPM, since September 10; Abdul Kareem Khan, PTI ticketholder from Lahore, since September 19; Awais Younus, PTI Lahore secretary information, since September 19; Farrukh Habib, former federal minister, since September 27 and Sheikh Rashid, former federal minister, since September 17.

Omar made it clear, “Unless these people are released, and the law enforcement agencies and any other agencies involved are reprimanded to immediately desist from such practices, I am afraid that no question exists of the upcoming elections being even remotely free or fair.”

He said these individuals were victim to this campaign of enforced disappearances, which was a violation of several articles of the Constitution, including Article 9 (security of person), Article 10 (safeguards as to arrest and detention – under which anyone detained in custody must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours), Article 10-A (right to fair trial) and Article 14 (inviolability of dignity of man and which protects the privacy of homes and bans any form of torture in custody) as well as the constitutionally-guaranteed right to life.

He said this enforced disappearance campaign was continuing with the sole purpose of trying to break the PTI, besides making a mockery of the Election Act 2017. “In the context of the very primary responsibility of the caretaker government to hold fair elections, this campaign of enforced disappearances violates Section 230(1)(d) in which the caretaker government has a duty to be impartial to every person and political party, and Section 186(d), in which no official can execute any act ‘calculated to influence the result of the election’,” he pointed out. Moreover, Omar recalled that these enforced disappearances also contravened Pakistan’s commitments to several international covenants and treaties.

Likewise, Omar stated that even civil servants such as Azam Khan (former principal secretary to prime minister) and Muhammad Khan Bhatti (principal secretary to chief minister Pervaiz Elahi) were made to disappear for several days, in the quest to make them give statements or turn approver against former PM Imran Khan.

Several mainstream media figures sympathetic to the government openly state that some of these figures were abducted by the state; for example, renowned anchors Ansar Abbasi, Muneeb Farooq and Mansoor Ali Khan have been openly stating in their vlogs that the state has been responsible for making individuals such as Imran Riaz disappear.

“In the cases of Dar and Farrukh, ministers in Sindh and Balochistan governments have given statements that the state has arrested these individuals, and yet none of them has appeared before a magistrate or another court of law,” he added.