Pakistan acts on forced disappearances, offers financial help to affected families

Islamabad: Pakistan government on Friday decided to provide financial assistance to the families of missing persons as pressure mounted on authorities to address the issue of forced disappearances in the country.

The decision was taken in a meeting of the cabinet which discussed reports of two previous committees set up to investigate the issue of missing persons, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said at a press conference.

He said that families of missing persons face several economic problems and the cabinet decided to provide urgent support to them after due diligence. “A special committee will be formed to determine which families need an immediate support package, after which each [eligible] family will receive Rs 5 million,” Tarar said.

“Keep in mind that this is not compensation of any kind, as there is no compensation for a human life,” the law minister clarified, adding that the assistance aimed to help them meet legal and financial challenges.

Tarar said more than 2,000 cases were identified for help but initially 1,000 families would be prioritised on a first come first serve basis whose relatives had been missing for more than five years. He said the prime minister set up a committee to determine the process to provide support.

The minister said that there were multiple reasons for persons reported as missing and pointing fingers at the intelligence agency was not enough to determine the whereabouts of such persons. He said that the intelligence agencies were helping to address the issue.

The issue of missing persons, especially in Balochistan which has been facing a low-level insurgency for nearly two decades, has been in the limelight for years and a Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIOED) formed under the Supreme Court’s directives to trace such person has been functional for more than a decade.

The commission reported last month that the total number of cases received since January 2018 till June 30 was 10,285 with a total of 8,015 of them addressed, including 4,514 returned home, 1,002 help in internment centres, 671 held in prisons, 277 found dead, and 1,551 cases were closed for various reasons.

But the tide has not stemmed and a total of 197 missing persons’ cases were submitted to COIOED in the first half of 2024, according to a report by the commission. It further stated that 226 cases were disposed of in the first six months of 2024.

The decision to provide financial support came in the wake of Balochistan experiencing several protests and unrest in the past months over the issue of missing persons. A latest protest ended today (Friday) in its Gwadar area after an agreement was signed by the Balochistan government with the protestors.

Separately, a three-member bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has been hearing a case about the missing persons and following its orders, the government earlier this week set up a three-member committee comprising top intelligence officials to help with the recovery of missing persons.