"Dear Uncle Musharraf"

"Something is missing in my personal and family life. I feel insecure. The base of the family is not there," Ayesha wrote to Musharraf.

"Dear uncle Musharraf, my father's name is Masood Janjua, who went missing on July 30, 2005, along with his friend Faisal Faraz," she writes.

"His name should be familiar since he is one of your detainees," Ayesha adds, fighting back the tears.

"Dear uncle, put your daughter in my position and think how much it hurts to have her father taken away like that."

Janjua, a 45-year old businessman, is being held without trial over his alleged ties to Al-Qaeda.

He was on his way to Peshawar along with his friend Faraz, whose whereabouts are also not known, when they vanished.

"I have not seen him in one and a half years, even on last three Eids," Ayesha writes.

"Something is missing in my personal and family life. I feel insecure. The base of the family is not there. The base that protects us.

"I feel that my whole world has crumbled. I know he is there and alive and around me. He is in my heart."

Justice

Janjua's wife, Amna, has been running his two computer and information technology colleges in Rawalpindi since his disappearance.

"When I think of my husband, the last thing I remember was the clock tower in my room. It was 9:30 am," she recalls.

"Since then, I have been running from pillar to post for justice," an emotional Amna told IOL.

"I want him to be with us back without delay of a second. I must be informed of his whereabouts and if there are any charges against him he should be produced before the court so that we can hire a lawyer and defend him."

Amna said her father-in-law, a retired colonel who was a colleague of General Musharraf at the Special Services Group of Pakistan Army, has approached the Pakistani leader.

"But nothing favorable has so far happened."

Janjua is one of hundred of Pakistanis who have been missing since 9/11 terrorist attacks on suspicion of having links to Al-Qaeda and the ousted Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan.

Intelligence and independent sources estimate the number of missing Pakistanis at nearly 700, most of them are in the custody of Pakistani intelligence agencies while others are languishing at the notorious Guantanamo detention center.

Families of various "detainees" have taken their cases to the courts, which have issued strict orders to the interior ministry to inform the judiciary of their whereabouts.

The ministry and the intelligence have, in some cases, remained reluctant to provide details and, in others, denied outright that the missing people were in their custody.

According to the constitution, civil courts, including the Supreme Court, cannot try any case against armed forces, which are being blamed for holding the missing people.

Phenomenon  

Intelligence and independent sources estimate the number of missing Pakistanis at nearly 700.

Affan Leghari, a 22-year old student of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Pakistan's most prestigious institute of higher learning, was picked up by security forces in October 2004.

He was taken away from his home in the southern port city of Karachi in the early morning by plain-clothed security officials.

Since then, his family has heard no word about him.

His aging father took his case to the court and approached media organizations to help free his son.

" I still don't know about the charges against my son," Leghari told the Karachi Press Club.

"I just want that if there are any charges against him, he must be produced before the court.

"But I am sure, the agencies have nothing against him, that is why they are not producing him before the judiciary," maintained a visibly infuriated father.

According to analysts, the "disappearance" phenomenon has become a rising trend in Pakistan over the last three years after the courts had released several suspects on the grounds of lack of evidence against them.

Family members and eyewitnesses to many of these disappearances report that the individuals in question were picked up by security officials - sometime in plain clothes – said Khalid Khuwaja, the Chairman of Defense of Human Rights Council, a body which has been providing legal assistance to the families of missing persons.

The council protested the illegal detentions outside the Supreme Court building in Islamabad last month, following that the apex court took suo moto [a legal term meaning that a government agency acts on its own cognizance] notice of the increasing cases of disappearances.

"It is heartening that the supreme court has taken the notice of increasing disappearances, but the problem is that a majority of the missing persons are being held by the army, and the courts cannot summon the army officers directly," lamented Khuwaja.

"It has to go through the interior ministry, which has been dilly-dillaying over the matter."

Resurfacing 

Khuwaja said some of the illegally detained persons, who were later released, had confirmed to him that they were held and interrogated by the army officials.

IOL tried to contact Muhammad Atif, who had been picked up by security forces two years back in Lahore and recently released.

"Atif told us that he was interrogated only for three-four times in initial days. After that, they (interrogators) forgot him," a family member told IOL, refusing to give his name.

"He was never questioned for the next two years," he added, saying Atif was questioned for his alleged links to Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

"Please leave us. We have found him alive, and this is enough for us."

According to sources, around 20 detainees have been released by security agencies during last two months after a period of 2 to 3 years of detention.

Khuwaja said another illegally detained person, given the first name Umer, has recently resurfaced after three years.

He said soon after his release, Umer was picked up by Lahore police on the charge of possessing unlicensed pistol and is now languishing in Lahore Jail.

Snubbing Courts

Mariam, the sister of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, has filed a petition in the Sindh High Court to determine the whereabouts of four relatives who were later apprehended.

Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti-Pakistani, was apprehended in March 2003 in Rawalpindi and handed over to the Americans. He is now being held in the notorious Guantanamo detention center.

The court has issued directives to the interior ministry to produce the accused before the court but the ministry says it was trying to locate the suspects.

"The detainees were taken away within the due course of the law and their whereabouts are not known," Ghulam Kadir Jatoi, Mariam's counsel, told IOL.

"More than three years have passed and I put their cases in front of the Sindh High Court, but there is no information about their whereabouts," he said.

"The High Court has called on the security agencies to give them a proper reply on where the men are. They (agencies) are playing with the High Court.

"These detainees should be produced before the courts and let the courts decide if they belong to Al-Qaeda or not," said the lawyer.

Dr Meraj-ul Huda Siddiqui, a central leader of the six-party religious coalition, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, accused the government of undermining the authority of the judiciary.

"One thing has been proved that there is no respect for the judiciary in Pakistan," he said.

"The courts have passed orders time and again to produce evidence and proof against the detainees however nothing has happened."

He accused President Musharraf of serving American interests.

"Pervez Musharraf has introduced the slogan 'Pakistan First', but actually is working on the agenda of 'US first'," said Siddiqui.

He asserted that Pakistan has become an open field for US and Pakistani agencies who have full impunity to operate here.

"There is a law of jungle here."

Necessary

Human rights groups have criticized the practices of detaining suspects without trial or charge, insisting that the war on terror cannot be won by resorting to illegal detentions and torture of suspects.

But Ikram Segal, a former Pakistani intelligence officer and a security and defense analyst, believes that while the rule of law should be respected, there is a new type of war underway which at times may require bending some laws.

"Human rights organizations are correct in their assessment. There are many Pakistanis who may be suspects and there may be enough evidence to bring them to the court," he said.

"But terrorists as you know do not have terrorists written on their foreheads and no terrorist leaves around documentary evidence," he argued.

"It is difficult when you are in the process of a court of law to bring that particular evidence against him."

Human rights groups, Segal said, had a valid point that their human rights were being violated but on the other hand what about the rights of many innocents who would die if these people appeared to be terrorists.

"Whenever there is a war, there is something called collateral damage. You will know that more than 50 percent of those who die are non-combatants.

"It depends on the security agencies and how good they are and efficient to know if the person is guilty as charged," said the former intelligence officer.

"But I am for the rule of law and agree that the rule of law must prevail but when you take into consideration the type of war going on, where a person comes and plants a bomb in a mosque for example and 150 people die what about their rights? No terrorist leaves documents or a trail behind."

Siddiqui took issue with Segal's argument.

"Ok, if I accept for a minute that terrorists do not leave any documentary proof and tangible evidence behind them, then what is wrong with informing their families about their whereabouts?" he asked angrily.

"It is a sheer violation of the Geneva Conventions that suspects are being tortured in Guantanamo Bay and other facilities in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"If the Pakistani and US governments think they are guilty, they should be taken to courts. This is a very dangerous phenomenon which is hurting their families," he insisted.

"If the victims and their families start to believe that they cannot get justice from the courts or from the governments, then they will choose another path, revenge."