WHEN all else fails, the highest offices in the land need to answer problematic questions about the role state institutions may have played in violating citizens’ fundamental rights. It is this context that apparently led the Islamabad High Court to summon the caretaker prime minister on Feb 19 in the hearing of a petition regarding the whereabouts of missing Baloch students. While hearing the case on Tuesday, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani expressed his displeasure at the state’s inability to recover missing persons. The attorney general had told the court that out of 50 missing people, 22 had been recovered while the others had yet to be traced. Justice Kayani observed that he was summoning the interim PM, but later the incoming chief executive could also be asked to appear in court.

It is hoped that the judiciary’s efforts to trace missing persons and end the deplorable practice of enforced disappearances bear fruit. However, it should be said that the state has more often than not stymied such efforts, and has, in fact, tarred protesters calling for the recovery of missing persons with calumny. The caretaker PM has in the past criticised the protesters, linking missing persons with terrorism and hostile intelligence agencies, while lambasting the judicial system for not prosecuting those allegedly involved in separatist militancy. So it would be interesting to see what the government has to tell the court about this sensitive subject. But the caretakers will soon be packing their bags, and the incoming dispensation will have to tell the nation what it intends to do about ending enforced disappearances. The fact that protesters had marched from Balochistan to Islamabad, receiving an unsavoury ‘welcome’ from the authorities, and had camped out in the capital for a month to highlight their plight speaks volumes about the issue. Officials can cruelly dismiss these protests as publicity stunts, but that does not alter the fact that people are disappearing in Pakistan, with no recourse to due process. The explanation that the judicial system is too feeble to prosecute alleged wrongdoers, and implying that ‘disappearing’ suspects is the only solution is unconvincing and an excuse for the law of the jungle to prevail. The disappearances must end and those accused of committing crimes must be brought before the courts, while the factors fuelling discontent in Balochistan need to be addressed.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2024