Re: Hindus are going missing in Sindh
This military junta has made many people ‘disappear’. The numbers grow every week
Where are they?
KARACHI: Five months after Chetan Kumar disappeared from Umerkot in Sindh, his family still remains in a state of anxiety. They do not know where he is, whether he’s dead or alive. They have not heard about him, or from him, and they do not even know whether he is in Pakistan or not.
Their nightmare began on the evening of July 17. “My father, my uncle Rupu, and I were sitting in our drawing room,” says Chetan’s son, Suresh, a student of Sindh University.** “Suddenly, eight men burst inside. They started asking my father questions. They asked him his name, and when he affirmed that his name was Chetan, they started kicking and punching him, and roughly pushed him outside the house. When I tried to stop them, they did the same to me.”**
Chetan Kumar’s story is like that of many other ‘missing’ persons across the country. According to the victims’ families and human rights groups, there are over 100 such people who have simply disappeared, a large number of them from Sindh.
In the same area of Umerkot the same fate has befallen Gordhan Das alias Bhagat. He was in his fifties and had cordial relations with everyone he knew, according to his daughter-in-law Anita. Her husband Om Parkash says that he and his father Bhagat had been sitting at the barber’s shop, when four men in a white double door vehicle, with blue lights on top, stopped in front of him. They asked him his name and said that they belonged to a secret investigation agency and that Gordhan was required for investigation. They dragged Bhagat into the car, and then covered his face with a black cloth. According to them, the men warned everyone present that if anyone attempted to lodge an FIR, their fate would be the same.
The illegal confinement of Bhagat and Chetan Kumar is not something out of the ordinary in the area. Umerkot’s people have often complained to the authorities and human rights groups that they feel insecure and unprotected. Many residents accuse those responsible for these acts of being motivated by religious discrimination. The district has a large Hindu population. Those who intimidate the people of this region, locals allege, are not held accountable in any way.
“My father worked in a brick company called Super Shine,” says Suresh, his anger slowly rising, making his voice quaver. “He had a perfectly clean record, and there was simply nothing that he had done to explain why he was picked up like this. Each time I think of him, I remember that evening when those men dragged him off in their double-door, white government vehicle. I managed to note down the number of the plates; that’s how I know it was a government car. It was GS-0162. When we went to the Umerkot Police Station to file an FIR, they refused, because they did not want to get involved with what the ‘agencies’ did.”
Neither Suresh nor Om Prakash knows anything more about their fathers’ disappearance. But they have signed a petition in the court. In his written statement given to the court, Suresh has drawn attention to the fact that Chetan had earlier been arrested on false charges in 2001. He was picked up in connection with a Tando Adam railway track bomb blast. He was kept in custody for four years before he was acquitted by the Sindh High Court.
Amarnath, a council member of the HRCP, an advocate and president of the Hindu Panchayat, is dealing with this case. He revealed the investigation of the HRCP Fact Finding Report. According to the report, the Umerkot police gave the impression that the missing men had actually been picked up by a unit of a sensitive agency. The head ‘Moharrar’ of Umerkot Police Station thinks that Chetan could have been picked up by the agencies in connection with the Mumbai blasts earlier this year. There is, however, no confirmation of these facts, and are simply theories. But in both cases the police refused to file FIRs and hinted that it was the work of the agencies.
**Both the families are broken by this incident. They are poor, and hardly have any income. Bhagat had earlier lost a son too, who tried tragically after reacting to an injection. Now the unwarranted disappearance of their family members has caused them to fall into severe depression and stress. Chetan’s father passed away in 2003, soon after his son was caught by the police in connection with the Tando Adam case. His mother is ill, and his family do not have a bread winner, as Suresh the oldest son is still a student. **
**Meanwhile, the number of missing persons believed to have been picked up by the “law enforcement agencies” continues to grow. No one knows their whereabouts, no one knows why they have been picked up and they seem to have simply disappeared into thin air. **
**The recent violent police action in Rawalpindi drew attention to the cause of these missing people and underlined the need for a high-level inquiry into the matter. For the sake of the agonised families waiting to hear about the fate of their loved ones, the time for justice is now. **
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