AZIZ-UD-DIN AHMAD
June 22 2006: Journalist Hayatullah Khan who reported for The Nation was kidnapped from Mirali Bazaar on 5th December following his investigative reports on the killing of Al-Qaeda commander Abu Hamza Rabia by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone. The report had contradicted the government’s version. Khan was picked up while he was proceeding to cover a student demonstration against the bombing that had also killed a student.
The Taliban promptly issued urgent a denial of being involved in the abduction. Family sources said he had been receiving threats and anonymous letters presumably from intelligence agencies not to file reports that were considered inappropriate. On Friday he was found dead, handcuffed and shot in the back of the head. His body was dumped near the town of Mirali in North Waziristan from where he had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen six months back.
Despite government’s assurances that it has allowed unprecedented freedom to the press, several reports have continued to appear in the press over the last few years regarding journalists being pressured and maltreated. Not long ago Amir Mir was hounded out from a weekly he was editing under pressure from the agencies. Last month TV cameraman Munir Sangi was killed in Larkana and as a BBC.com commentator puts it his killers enjoy impunity because of the patronage of a local MNA whose vote is needed in the presidential elections. Newspaper reporter Mukesh Ropeta was kidnapped recently in mysterious circumstances from Jacobabad and threats extended to another Sindhi reporter Sarmad Kernani whose reports were not liked by the government.
The incidents in Waziristan, Balochistan and Sindh are reminiscent of the “dirty war” in Latin America, particularly in Argentina under Generals Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Viola and Galtirie between 1976 and 1983. The term was coined to characterise the state-sponsored war on domestic citizens in response to strikes, social unrest, and militancy which the Argentinian army claimed threatened the country’s stability. During the dirty war the junta was responsible for arresting, torturing, killing or kidnapping between 9,000 (the minimum confirmed number of those killed) and 30,000 Argentinians. In 1976 one of the Argentinian generals had predicted, “We are going to kill 50,000 people: 25 thousand subversives, 20,000 sympathisers, and we’ll make 5,000 mistakes.” Seeing what is happening in Waziristan and Balochistan one suspects the working of a similar mindset.
A HRCP report published early this year and entitled “Conflict in Balochistan” is a fairly comprehensive document prepared by a fact finding mission who gathered evidence by visiting the affected areas and through interviews conducted with persons who had been picked up by intelligence agencies. Almost every journalist who met the HRCP team complained of threats that they had received from these agencies. “A few of them narrated incidents in which they were picked up and then released a day later, after having been warned. Journalists complained that persons claiming to be representatives of the secret services threatened to kidnap their family members unless the succumbed to their demands.”
The executive summary of the report concludes,”There were alarming accounts of summary executions, some allegedly carried out by paramilitary forces…Across Balochistan, the HRCP team found widespread instances of ‘disappearance’, of torture inflicted on people held in custody and on those fleeing from their home and hearth in fear.” The report documents cases of kidnapping of the type Hayatullah Khan was subjected to. A statement attributed to the interior minister acknowledges 4,000 arrests in connection with the ongoing unrest in the province. The charges against a number of those detained have not been disclosed to their families, nor have they been produced before a competent court.
According to the HRCP report, the families of those kidnapped are often hesitant to come forward because of threats by intelligence agencies warning them to remain silent. “We do however have a fair number of documented cases which can be made public. They present a dark picture. The reports reflect a pattern of intimidation and abuse: people are threatened to remain silent, they are blind-folded and handcuffed and tortured through various means, including the injection of unknown chemicals, humiliation and stripping…It appears that there is a network of private torture cells run by intelligence agencies throughout the country.”
The report contains a list of those kidnapped, one of them way back in October 2000, another in August 2004 and none knowing about their fate. This raises the question if Hayatullah was picked up by one of the agencies? The government has to dispel the perception of the country that it is being run as a police state. There is enough evidence to establish a prima facie case. Hayatullah’s brother is on record having told the press that in one of the meetings with local intelligence operatives and government officials on May 15 he had been assured that the family would hear something about him on or about June 15. They received Hayatullah’s dead body on June 16.
Probes of the type conducted in the past by inquiry committees have either pushed things under the rug or held a minor official responsible. What is required is a thorough and transparent probe and none, however important, should be shielded if found to be involved in any act of commission or omission. The inquiry into Hayatullah’s murder is going to be a test case. E-mail queries and comments to: [email protected]
Source: The Nation
Date:6/22/2006
