Maryam urges army, ISI chiefs to help kin of missing persons

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz said on Wednesday that the government should at least inform the families of missing persons if their relatives are alive or dead.

She was speaking to reporters at the D-chowk Islamabad where she came to visit protesters who are demonstrating over the issue of missing persons in Balochistan. She urged the chiefs of the Pakistan Army and Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) to resolve the issues of the protesters.

“They are citizens of your country, they are your daughters, your mothers, Come talk to them. Resolve the issues that can be solved. Produce the people who are alive in courts and those who are not alive at least tell the families that they are not alive,” Maryam said.

She also bashed 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 about those who are in torture cells. They won’t do anything, they will just cry and fall silent but at least the agony that they experience every day will end.”

The PML-N leader stated that she wants to say this to Imran Khan as well that Prime Minister House is not that far from here; it’s hardly five minutes away. “These girls told me that they have been siting out here for a week. You don’t have to answer the agencies, you have to answer God. This 22 million population is your responsibility. If you can’t do anything for them, you have no control, at least you can pat their heads. Or do you only have things like ‘I won’t be blackmailed by dead bodies’ to say?”

Maryam also condemned statements given by the federal ministers Sheikh Rashid and Fawad Chaudhry, without naming either of them.

Rashid had drawn ire earlier this week, when he said that the capital police had “fired a litle tear gas” on protesting government employees in order to “test the shells”. Last week, Islamabad police had fired over a 1,000 tear gas shells at the protesters to disperse them. The protesters, who were government employees, were demanding an increase in their salaries in accordance with the prevailing inflation.