‘Commission asking families to accept compensation money, withdraw complaints’

MPA Khawaja Izharul Hasan criticises SC’s investigative committee; says Rabita Committee and aggrieved families to meet commission members on Nov 12

Criticising the Supreme Court’s commission on missing persons, Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA and Sindh Assembly Opposition Leader Khawaja Izharul Hasan on Thursday said the families were being asked to accept Rs200,000 as compensation and withdraw their complaints. 

Accompanied by other party officials and families of the missing persons, Hasan was addressing a presser at the party’s headquarter in PIB Colony where he called for justice for the human rights excesses committed during security operations in Karachi.

"Representatives of MQM-P and the families of missing persons will meet the SC commission members on November 12 to relay our grievances and demands. If no credible steps are taken to address the issue, the families will be forced to stage protests for their rights," he said.

Izhar said the commission took up cases of only 21 people out of a total of 131 and asked families of the missing people to accept money. “This is a gross human rights violation, and also a breach of the country’s constitution.”

“The MQM indeed asked for there to be an operation in Karachi, but it has all the right to highlight the wrongs of the operation, he added.

Ever since the operation began, no grievance-redressal committee or a complaint centre was established for the general public to register their complaints with, he added.

He said he hoped the complaints, including of people going missing or extra-judicially killed by law enforcers, would be done away with soon.

He also further claimed that these cases were of the people who went missing during the 1992 operation, on MQM; but the families had reportedly rejected the offer of the commission.

“Implementation on Interior Minister Chaudry Nisar’s promises to provide reports of the missing persons was also yet awaited,” the leader Sindh assembly opposition stated.

The list of the party’s 131 missing persons was shared with the prime minister, law enforcement agencies and other organisations, he observed, adding, that investigating the whereabouts of these people, whether they had been killed and buried was now the responsibility of these authorities.

“It is the right of the families to know what happened to their loved ones.”

However, the Rabita committee member said some of the missing persons were recovered and reunited with their families which to some extent restored the people’s confidence in the law enforcement agencies, but called for the process of tracing the remaining people to be geared up.  Hasan also called for MQM-P to be given political space.