Eyes and ears are great witnesses to the truth. Once prevented, forcefully, from performing their primary functions - seeing and hearing - they cease to be so. A heartless repressive regime such as Pakistan's, like a thief at night on his tiptoes to loot and rob people of their lives, honors and properties, loves eye-less and ear-less people so it can do its dirty deeds unseen, unheard, uninterrupted.
The seeing, hearing and especially vocal people stand between regimes and their repressive policies. The regimes don't like them. They use their coercive powers to silence them through intimidation. Failing, they just make them disappear into thin air.
That is what Musharraf government has been doing, especially since 9/11. It has unleashed the state machinery and its agencies to pounce on whoever commits this unpardonable crime of speaking up.
A typical disappearance starts with a macabre knock at the door when night is at its most dark. The first thing a victim or a member of his family sees is the nozzle of a gun and then, man behind the gun with his bony finger at the trigger and a face contorted with disciplined hatred and rage. No warrants. No charges. No trace.
The trauma of abduction leaves families devastated. They find their lives and dreams shattered - in the bloody claws of incessant agony, uncertainty and helplessness. An interminable night of wait, long wait, awaits. After the initial hectic search of their loved ones they are left to float in the fathomless oceans of despair and despondence. The days turn into weeks; weeks into months; and moths into years. The families live in terrible 'Barzakh' (limbo), not sure to start mourning or to keep their hope alive that one day their loved ones will come back alive.
Everyday in the morning they go out looking for their sons, fathers, brothers, clutching onto their framed photos in their tired hands. They go door to door seeking justice but receiving stares of indifference and rejection. Dejected, at night, they come back to their empty homes to face long frightening nights of fitful sleep and nightmares.
They must be asking the inevitable question: Is this the country of their dreams?
We, you and me, should ask this question: should we stop seeing, hearing and, may be a little, speaking?
Let us say NO to blindness, dumbness and muteness. Let us start speaking up! All at the same time!! Let us find out in what dark dungeons OUR loved ones are rotting!!!
Let us not let the regime drink in one "deek" (continuous gulp - swill).
Relatives of the missing beaten up
Working to stop human rights violations in the "war on terror"
Demanding their freedom
The missing link
Spotlight on Pakistan's "disappeared"
Free our sons
700 Pakistanis missing since start of war on terror
'War on Terror' an Excuse for Disappearances
