Govt mulls over solution to missing persons issue

ISLAMABAD: The government is discussing with the security establishment some legal way out to end the phenomenon of missing persons, which besides causing serious issues of human rights has also become an embarrassment, both to the successive governments and the agencies.

Informed sources said that the most complex and sensitive issue of missing persons is presently the focus of both the civil government and security establishment. The discussion is on to find a solution focused on how to deal with the situation, so that neither the dangerous suspects of terrorism and anti-state activities get any space to operate nor the agencies misuse their power or arrest any innocent.

These discussions have even been held in the National Security Committee meeting, which has the representation of top civil-military leadership and security agencies. Both the civil government and security establishment agree that some legal solution to the problem be evolved without compromising the security aspect but ensuring that no person gets missing. However, what should be the solution is not yet final.

Different options are being discussed like making it mandatory for the agencies to produce the person before the court within 48 hours and having a parliamentary oversight to regularly monitor the reasoning or justification for those taken into custody. It is admitted that some innocents are also picked up and go missing because of wrong intelligence reports or misuse of authority by the agencies’ personnel but the majority is seriously found dangerous to the society and in case they are set free, it could lead to terrorism and subversion.

There is no clarity as yet what changes in the law the government needs to make to end the phenomenon of missing persons. Will the agencies get the power to arrest? How would the parliament or any other government body regulate and monitor such arrests by agencies? These are difficult questions.

According to a federal minister, there are some issues on which different stakeholders have different views. On condition of not being named, the minister said that this is fact that there are dangerous suspects of terrorism and anti-state activities who could not be set free like usual suspects. The security agencies keep an eye on them, collect relevant data but can’t take them into custody.

If the agencies are given the power to arrest, it is feared, civil society and human rights activists will react. And if the dangerous suspects are set free, terrorism and subversive activities will grow. This is the catch-22 situation for both the government and security establishment.

Under pressure from the courts and civil society, the PTI government had introduced a bill in the parliament to criminalise enforced disappearances with 10-year imprisonment for anyone found guilty of it. A new Section 52-B (enforced disappearance) was proposed to be inserted into PPC after Section 52-A. The proposed section stated that the “term enforced disappearance relates to the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by an agent of the state or by person or group of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”

The bill could not be legislated and according to the-then human rights minister, the missing persons bill had gone missing. The said bill addresses the issue of misuse of authority by security agencies where they arrest a person without any lawful authority and make him disappear for any period of time. However, it is being discussed. There is no answer to the other aspect i.e. how to deal with “dangerous elements.”