Return victims to families: ASK

Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) urged the government to trace the victims of enforced disappearances and return them to their families.

The rights body gave a statement on Monday, a day before the International Day of the Disappeared.

In the statement, the ASK said the government has denied the incidents of enforced disappearances repeatedly in national and international levels.

However, the allegations of enforced disappearances were proved true on different occasions in the narration of victims' relatives and witnesses and in the investigation of journalists and human rights bodies.

Media reported that victims were shown arrested in several cases after being picked up.

Quoting different media outlets, the ASK said a total of 28 people were victims of enforced disappeared between 2019 and 2022. Of them, 12 were shown arrested later and five returned to homes. The remaining are still missing.

The ASK pressed six demands to the government through issuing this statement on Monday.

These include: return the victims of enforced disappearances to their families, form an independent and neutral commission for ensuring fair investigation over the incidents of enforced disappearances, ensure exemplary punishment of the persons responsible, sign the international charter related to enforced disappearances and modify the legal structure to ensure justice.

The rights body has also pressed three specific demands to the National Human Rights Commission.

These are: investigate the allegations of incidents of enforced disappearances, provide legal and ethical assistances to the victims' families and conduct a national hearing based on the allegations.