Four days after the UN notice on June 15, a private television channel announced that Idris Khattak was being held in the custody of state agencies under the Official Secrets Act 1923. The UN having taken notice has had some impact. Idris Khattak was now no longer in the category of hundreds of hapless citizens who have mysteriously disappeared from tribal areas, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and Gilgit Baltistan.
A day after the television report, a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in Islamabad summoned Idris Khattak’s brother on June 16. In this meeting, the Military Intelligence representative admitted that Khattak had been held by it. The JIT was then disbanded and the Commission on Disappearances closed the case, as Khattak had been traced and was no longer in the category of the disappeared.
No one remembered that it was because of the concerns by UN, and not due to any notice taken by the commission, that it had finally been acknowledged that Idris was in state custody. For its part, the woefully incompetent commission did not bother to ask as to who had kidnapped Idris Khattak and kept him in illegal custody for so long.
Four days after the UN notice on June 15, a private television channel announced that Idris Khattak was being held in the custody of state agencies under the Official Secrets Act 1923
The commission headed by a former Supreme Court judge, who is also Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), has not been able to investigate let alone prosecute a single perpetrator of the crime of enforced disappearances even though the law requires it. During meeting of the Senate Human Rights Committee on August 28, 2018 Justice Javed Iqbal even disclosed that 158 state functionaries involved had been identified. Following are excerpts from the minutes of the meeting:
“The chairman of the committee inquired if any action had been initiated against those individuals who were thought to be involved in abducting people and depriving missing people of their liberty. The committee was apprised that action had been taken against 153 army personnel.”
However, there was no mention of the rank of the 153 army personnel involved, and what action had been taken against them. The meeting of the Senate Committee was open to public and media persons were also present.
Surprisingly, however, this astounding disclosure was not covered in the mainstream media the next day. This speaks volumes about the competence of the Commission on Disappearances as well as about the independence of the media in Pakistan.
During a hearing in the case before Peshawar High Court, when a judge asked why Mr Khattak was not present in court, he was told that the nuclear armed military feared that he may be killed on his way to the court. So, Idris Khattak remains in a dark, deep black hole from which no information comes out about his state of health and well-being.
On August 31 this year, several concerned UN bodies addressed a joint letter to the government of Pakistan on the subject. The letter is jointly signed by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and Special Rapporteur on minority issues citing various Human Rights Council resolutions. These half a dozen UN bodies have expressed “grave alarm over the continued incommunicado detention and risk of torture and ill-treatment faced by Idris Khattak.”
“We are particularly concerned at the alleged lack of cooperation of the Military Intelligence and unwillingness of the state authorities to comply with the Peshawar High Court’s directive to produce Khattak during the habeas corpus petition hearings,” it said.
“We are further concerned that after the recognition of custody by state authorities, the JIT and COEID disposed of Mr Khattak’s case prematurely, without conducting an adequate investigation into the institutional and criminal responsibilities for Mr Khattak’s abduction and arbitrary detention, and without ensuring any form of redress, rehabilitation and compensation for the victim and his family,” it went on to say.
The letter then asks the government to “please provide information on the factual and legal grounds for the arrest and detention of Mr Khattak under the Pakistan Army Act of 1952 and the Official Secrets Act of 1923. As a civilian, please specify the charges under which Mr Khattak is being detained incommunicado and explain how these measures are compatible with international standards related to the right to liberty and security of the person, enshrined in Article 9 of the ICCPR.”
All the UN Rapporteurs have also cautioned the government of Pakistan “this communication and any response received will be made public via the communications reporting website within 60 days. They will also subsequently be made available in the usual report to be presented to the Human Rights Council.”
Further, “We may publicly express our concerns in the near future as, in our view, the information upon which the press release will be based is sufficiently reliable to indicate a matter warranting immediate attention. We also believe that the wider public should be alerted to the potential implications.”
This was on August 31, 2020. As more than sixty days have passed, it must be made public. Till today there is no response from the government to UN concerns while Idris Khttak lies in a bottomless pit of a deep and dark hole of intelligence agencies.
The writer is a former senator