ISLAMABAD: Senator Farhatullah Babar proposed performance evaluation audit of the Commission on Enforced Disappearances in the light of the terms under which it was established and the report presented to the Senate committee. He made the proposal in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Human Rights on the performance of the commission during the past six years of its existence.
The meeting chaired by, Senator Nasreen Jalil, was attended by Senators Nisar Muhammad Khan, Sehar Kamran, Mufti Abdul Sattar, Mohsin Leghari and Farhatullah Babar.
The performance evaluation in two critical functions of the Commission is important, Babar said. Firstly, “To affix responsibility on individuals or organizations responsible for enforced disappearances” and secondly, “to register or direct registration of FIRs against those involved.
Not only Pakistani citizens but lately foreign nationals, like the Turks recently, have disappeared mysteriously. A major reason of this was the failure to affix responsibility and register FIRs against those involved, even after recovery of some from illegal custody, it was said.
The commission was appointed by the government and is not a judicial commission. Performance evaluation is the responsibility of the government and oversight is function of the parliament, Babar said. He also asked that the report of the first commission, set up in March 2010 through an order of the Ministry of Interior and completed its work within a year, be made public. “The report might throw light on the sworn statements of hundreds of people”, he said.
“The Commission on Enforced Disappearances claimed to have traced over two thousand missing persons over the last six years but there was no word whether it also recorded the statements of any of the victims”, Babar said. Many of the so called “recovered” were dead bodies, Babar said and asked if the commission initiated any investigation or prosecution of those responsible? Babar said that the commission had powers to “enter[ing] any building or place” and asked whether this power was used and offices of the accused agencies raided to collect incriminating evidence.
If, for some reason, the commission was not able to perform basic functions, let us look into the reasons and empower it to be able to do so, he said. Farhatullah Babar also urged that report of the First Missing Persons Commission be made public. He proposed that investigations should be carried out in the case of over two thousand Pakistani citizens recorded as “traced” by the commission and the findings submitted to the committee within three months. The committee also asked the chairman of the commission to collect data on those in internment centres and about the cases against them.
Published in Daily Times, October 12th 2017.
