August 21, 2024
By Rana Malhi
ISLAMABAD
Civil society, including politicians, journalists and human rights activists held a demonstration outside the Islamabad Press Club on Tuesday, August 20, to mark six years since Mudassar Naaru’s disappearance. During this time, the wife of the poet and journalist also died possibly due to the toll it took on her health, leaving behind their son.
Several people joined Naaru’s father Rana Mahmood Ikram in the protest demo, including former PPP Senator and human rights activist Farhatullah Babar, senior leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) Afrasiab Khattak, rights activist and wife of a missing person Amina Masood Janjua, and senior journalist Munizae Jahangir.
The participants held placards with slogans demanding Naaru’s recovery.
Speaking during the protest, Rana Mahmood Ikram, said that while the petitions of other cases were being addressed in courts, when it came to cases of enforced disappearances or missing persons, it could take over six months just to get a hearing. Many years pass, and yet no judicial bench has been formed to address the cases of missing persons. He said that from time to time, judges would deliberately go on leave to delay the case, and while successive governments have promised to recover Mudassar, none have fulfilled their promises.
“If Mudassar has committed a crime, an FIR should be registered against him, and he should be presented in court,” said Ikram. “While those accused of treason are labeled ‘enemies of the state’, the accusations are never proven in court. Even spies from India are allowed to meet their families, but we cannot meet our loved ones who are missing.”
Criticizing General (Retired) Faiz Hameed and former Army Chief Qamar Bajwa, Ikram said that they would take their case to international human rights organizations, and would urge countries including the US and others to impose sanctions on them for human rights violations.
Farhatullah Babar said that when the case was being heard in the Islamabad High Court, the Prime Minister had appeared and promised Naaru’s son that he would reunite him with his father within two months, but this promise was not fulfilled.
“Six years have passed, with Shehbaz Sharif now Prime Minister, but the promise to bring back Mudassar Naaru remains unfulfilled,” he said. He demanded that Mudassar Naaru’s case be heard in court, the case against interment centres be resumed, and that an investigation be conducted against General (Retired) Faiz Hameed, under whose tenure many people went missing.
“When the investigation starts, it should begin with cases of missing persons.”
Meanwhile, wife of missing person Amina Masood Janjua said that journalists who covered the issue of missing persons often faced immense challenges.
“Those who reported on enforced disappearances and became our voice from the camp for the recovery of missing persons are often picked up and even sometimes fired from their jobs. ones who are disappeared, and many times these journalists are even fired from their jobs.
“Naaru was progressive minded and against any form of slavery,” she said. “He believed in free thinking and expressed his thoughts in poetry which became a crime.”
Afrasiab Khattak, stated that Mudassar Naaru’s wife passed away, and his son was now much older but had hardly seen his father. “A strong state does not engage in such actions; it brings people to court for their crimes. Such actions are characteristic of a weak state only.”
Mudassar Naaru allegedly went missing in 2018 from the Balakot area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where he had gone with his wife and son for tourism.