Amina's Judge Is Back In Chair

Amina sounded very upset and down over the phone on that fateful day, March 9. I had asked her how did it go in the court for her husband, Masood Janjua, and all those other missing Pakistanis whose cause she had taken on her slender shoulders and was fighting an uphill fight in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. She told me that she no more had a judge to listen to her case because Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had been sacked by General Musharraf.

After hearing the news this morning that Justice Chaudhry has been reinstated by a 13-member bench of the Supreme Court which threw out the government's accusations against him, I called her and found her ecstatic and besides herself.

Her judge is back and she thinks he can bring her husband back. She has been waiting for him since July 30, 2005 when he went missing. She believes and has heard from those who have seen him in detention that he is Pakistani intelligence agencies' illegal custody.

In Justice Chaudhry's absence the case of missing Pakistanis was being heard by two judges of the Supreme Court but it was moving with the pace of a tired lethagic snail.

“He was very fatherly,” she Told the New York Times, recalling a hearing on March 8 before Mr. Chaudhry. “I was insisting hard. I was in tears. He said: ‘Be comforted. We are using every channel, and every person is going to be released, and we are going to continue the hearings until the last person is released.’ ” She added: “On March 8, he was speaking like this. The very next day, he was not in his chair.”

Now he is back in chair. She believes he will push harder for her husband and other 'disappeared' Pakistanis' release. I hope her wish is fulfilled by him.