This fear must disappear

The return of activist, poet and educationist Salman Haider and others who had been  missing in separate but simultaneous incidents for    more than three weeks will be welcomed not just by their family and friends but everyone who was worried about their fates. The protests after their disappearances showed that there are still people unwilling to accept that such disappearances should become the norm. Even though Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said at a press conference on Monday that it was not government policy to pick up people without charge and that Salman Haider’s family had appreciated his help, that still doesn’t mean that there are no questions to be answered anymore. We need to know how so many people – many of them active campaigners for social and political justice – can suddenly and sometimes simultaneously disappear and then reappear. There also needs to be a look at the coordinated campaign of hate against them, with anchors and internet trolls accusing them of all manner of crimes including blasphemy. Not long ago, another citizen, Wahid Baloch, was picked up in Karachi; then too there was complete silence from the authorities about what happened to him. These incidents create a climate of fear in the country and it has become rare for politicians, and in some cases even civil society, to raise a voice for them. In the case of Wahid Baloch, and more so in the matter of Haider, at least some small political groups and parts of civil society leapt into action. This may have made the difference.

Apart from finding out who was behind the abductions, there also needs to be an investigation into the way the abductees were treated. The wounds such incidents inflict take a long time to heal. The victims, or their families, appear reluctant to tell their stories, with Haider’s family members simply stating his health is better. But that makes us wonder if he was tortured or ill-treated. We do hope this is not the case. This country is beset by violent extremism and yet it is small groups of activists and individuals that live in constant fear of being targeted, and of being subjected to vile media campaigns. On top of that, the threat of being picked up or ‘disappeared’ has been becoming a reality countrywide. One of the central planks of the National Action Plan was to no longer give a voice to the most extremist elements in our society. Yet, night after night, they can be seen on our screens issuing dangerous threats to people who have already been abducted. At the very least, the government should now be able to provide security to the abducted activists and tell the rest of us what happened. Then, it needs to take action against those who put them in peril. It is simply not acceptable that people can be taken away and returned back at the will of others without anything being said or without any acknowledgement of what happened from the government. How can a society where people live in constant fear of disappearance and death be expected to develop a spirit to challenge organised fanaticism and reactionary militancy? The silence being created is designed to prevent citizens from voicing their concern or drawing attention to issues that matter to society. This fear that is being engineered may be our ultimate destroyer. There are countless others who remain missing in the country and there are not very many willing to speak up for what is right and just. That there may be no one left at all to speak up is surely not a point that we wish to reach.