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Missing Jamia Hafsa students
July 30: WE will locate all the missing Jamia Hafsa students,
said Prime Minister Shaukat on Saturday while talking to the parents and
relatives of missing students. Fifty eight people have contacted the Ministry of
the Interior for the recovery of their loved ones who vanished during the
crackdown on the Lal Masjid. Tensely waiting for news of their loved ones ever
since the operation, the apprehensions of these relatives were further piqued
when severed, mutilated body parts were found recently in the rubble of the
fallen mosque.
The Interior Secretary informed reporters that the
registrationg of those who had left the compound of the mosque before
hostilities began on the 3rd of July had not been done. Around 1200 students
left the mosque since after the said date, all of whom were registered and all
but 46 of whom were released. The number of missing people will be minimised
further when the DNA test reports of the 62 unidentified people buried in
Islamabad come through, bringing closure, if not solace, to many of the families
of those missing persons.
There has been a bloodbath across the country ever
since the Lal Masjid operation took place. The spate of terrorist attacks shows
no signs of abating. The sheer entropy that comes with fighting an enemy as
elusive and invisible as the terrorists is one that is known to all. However,
one of the many proactive measures the government can take in ensuring that the
trend fizzles out is handling the aftermath of the operation effectively. And
that includes locating all the missing students. By no means, of course, does
this signify that that should be the only or even primary motive for locating
them. It is the duty of the state to provide security to its citizens.
Beleaguered as our democratic credentials might be, we are, nonetheless, living
in a democracy. The whole business of missing persons, which goes way before the
Lal Masjid incident, is not becoming of a genuine democracy. The nation
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