DEAD OR ALIVE!

CAN ANYONE TELL THE FATE OF15
"DISAPPEARED" PAKISTANIS?

THE UNFORTUNATE VICTIMS WERE ARRESTED
AND TAKEN INTO THE STATE CUSTODY

HELP

EVEN AFTER MANY YEARS THEIR
WHEREABOUTS ARE STILL UNKNOWN

A CATALOGUE OF "DISAPPEARANCE"
OF 15 MOHAJIRS AGED BETWEEN 18 AND 50 YEARS,
FROM THE STATE CUSTODY IN PAKISTAN

INTRODUCTION

It is reported that 15 innocent citizens of Pakistan are missing from the custody of Law Enforcement Agencies and Police. They were arrested during the Operation Clean-Up, which commenced against the MQM and the entire Mohajirs Nation on 19 June 1992, in urban Sindh, southern Pakistan. The victims were arrested on different dates from different places of Pakistan, mainly from Karachi and other parts of urban Sindh.

The only crime of the 15 "disappeared" persons, aged between 18 and 50, was that they were Mohajirs and had affiliation with the MQM (Muttahida Quami Movement, Pakistan). MQM is the third largest political party of Pakistan and the second largest in the province of Sindh. MQM attained this position by winning four consecutive General Elections in 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997, with landslide victory from urban areas of Sindh Province. MQM is the sole representative party of over 22 million Mohajirs in Pakistan.

Since 19 June 1992, extremely ruthless methods have been adopted by the Establishment in crushing the MQM and eliminated its members. The State brutalities intensified manifold during the tenure of Benazir Bhutto Government. Amnesty International, Asia Watch and other human rights organisations indicted the Government of Benazir Bhutto for carrying out extra-judicial killings of thousands of Mohajirs in Karachi, port city of Pakistan. Because of the large scale extra-judicial killings and simultaneously the furore of international human rights organisations on such killings, the President of Pakistan Farooq Ahmed Leghari had no choice but to use his constitutional powers to dismiss the Government of Benazir Bhutto. President Farooq Ahmed Leghari used the extra-judicial killings as the major and foremost ground in his Proclamation for the Dismissal of the Government of Benazir Bhutto on 5 November 1996. The Supreme Court of Pakistan also upheld the Presidential decision while endorsing the charges levelled against the Government of Benazir Bhutto.

Along with these extra-judicial executions, thousands of Mohajirs were unlawfully arrested, tortured and maimed for life. These are many cases where the arrested persons were neither produced before any Court of Law nor sent to any prison all over Pakistan. There are some cases where either the parents or relatives of the arrested persons met them in Police Stations but when the relatives went again to the same police station to see the arrested persons, they were told by the Police that they had been transferred to prisons but the arrested persons could not be discovered in any prison by their relatives so far. Some of the parents and relatives of "disappeared" persons at last informed the MQM leaders and elected representatives of their plight. The fate of the 15 "disappeared" persons in still unknown and the security forces have not provided any clue to their whereabouts.

MQM Information Cell has so far collected the details of 15 "disappeared" persons, which we have included in this catalogue to apprise you of the plight of 15 victims and their families. There may well be many more missing persons and we are endeavouring to collect the details of those missing persons. Some of the families, however, have not come forward for fear of reprisals.

Having failed in all our attempts to make a headway with the Establishment in Pakistan, we now appeal to the international community and human rights organisations to assist us in finding the "disappeared" persons and alleviating the mental torture of their families. Indeed, your efforts may redress many years of pain and anguish which their families have been forced to endure.

MISSING PERSONS

Asif Ahmed	Mohammad Javed	Zafar Ahmed
Abdul Khaliq	Asif Jameel	Sheikh Noor Alam
Mirza Tauseef Baig	Mohammad Ashfaq	Mirza Samiullah Baig
Abdul Aleem	Faqeer Mohammad	M. Anwar Ansari
M. Zafeer Khan	Gohar Anis Khan	Abdul Rehman

DETAILS OF "DISAPPEARED" PERSONS

An unknown number of people have "disappeared" in the custody of the law enforcement agencies or have been held for prolonged periods in incommunicado detention; these appear to include mostly workers and supposed sympathizers of the MQM in Karachi...

Amnesty International believes that prisoners in incommunicado detention and prisoners who have "disappeared" in custody are particularly at risk of torture and illtreatment..

Amnesty International, February 1996 -- AI Index: ASA 33/12/97

Successive governments in Pakistan have arrested and detained political opponents on false criminal charges, under so-called blind FIRs or under preventive laws. Some of these prisoners may be prisoners of conscience...

Amnesty International, June 1997 -- AI Index: ASA 33/12/97

Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are also facilitated by the widespread practice of holding prisoners in incommunicado detention, sometimes in premises not designated for the purpose. In such undeclared places of detention, law enforcement personnel are able to commit human rights violations with impunity since legal safeguards against ill-treatment cannot be enforced and detection in unlikely...

UN Special Rapportuer on Torture -- ECN.4/1997/7/Add.2