PM Khan to meet representative committee of missing persons in March
Islamabad: Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari said that Prime Minister Imran Khan would meet a three-member representative committee of the families of missing persons who are protesting in the D chowk for more than a week. The meeting will take place in the month of March.
In a tweet, Mazari said that she met the protesting families of the missing persons today and conveyed the prime minister’s message to them.
She further added that the government commitment to ensure an end to this practice of Enforced Disappearances through the legislative process is now moving forward.
According to the press release from the Ministry of Human Rights, the human rights minister met the protesters on the PM’S instructions. The minister also conveyed three points of PM.
1) The protesters should end their dharna.
2) The prime minister would meet a three-member representative committee from among the protesters in March in a meeting arranged by Mazari.
3) The protesters would hand over a list of the missing persons so their status could be ascertained and communicated to the prime minister before the meeting.
The families also requested the minister that priority should be given to the missing persons of the 13 families who are present at the dharna, Mazari added.
This comes as Prime Minister expressed concern over the issue of the missing person and directed the Ministry of Human Rights to make prompt legislation in the parliament to ensure that there was no missing person in the present government.
Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari had also informed the PM that a proposed bill to stop the disappearance of people was lying with the law ministry for over two years but nothing was being done on it.
Meanwhile, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to speak to the relatives of the Baloch missing persons.
Speaking to the media in D-Chowk, Islamabad where she came to visit protesters on Wednesday who was demonstrating over the issue of missing persons in Balochistan. The families of missing persons in Balochistan have gathered for days now in a camp outside the National Press Club, demanding the recovery of their loved ones.
Maryam also criticised the government for not reaching out to the protesters, saying that it is the duty of the state to take care of its citizens. “If you cannot recover their loved ones, at least you can tell them where their loved ones, who are in torture cells, are,” Maryam said. “They won’t do anything, they will just cry and fall silent but at least the agony that they experience every day will end.”
She demanded PM to visit the D-Chowk and talk to the protesters, further adding that the missing person commission held no value. “You haven’t accepted any commission to date. A commission is of no use,” she said, describing it as ‘eyewash’.
