‘Musharraf handed over thousands to US’

Most of the extradited people were sent abroad in exchange for dollars, Iqbal says

The government of former president General Pervez Musharraf has been accused of handing over as many as 4,000 Pakistanis to foreign countries, mainly to the US, local media reported.

The disclosure was made by the head of the commission on missing persons on Monday in a briefing to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights.

National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman and National Commission for Enforced Disappearances President Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal said that former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao was part of the “secret handover”. The chairman, however, did not provide any details or names.

“Most of the extradited persons [were] sent to the US in exchange for dollars,” Iqbal was quoted as saying by Pakistani media yesterday.

He added that there was no provision in the country’s law for such extraditions.

“As per the law and the Constitution, how could someone secretly hand over Pakistani nationals to any other country?,” he asked.

In the briefing, Iqbal said that 70 per cent of the missing individuals were involved in ‘militancy’ and that the recovered individuals “were too scared to open up about their experiences”.

Iqbal said the statistics on missing persons in Balochistan were often exaggerated.

“There have been several militant groups present in the province and many ‘missing persons’ have gone along with them,” he said.

Former Balochistan chief minister Aslam Raisani and Nasrullah Baloch had been tasked to provide the list but to no avail, the NAB chief said.

Missing MQM workers

Regarding the decades-old case of missing Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers, the commission chief said, “MQM showed no interest in the recovery of their missing workers.”

He said the party was in government but did not take the case of missing persons in Sindh seriously.

“The MQM workers who went missing two decades ago have not been recovered yet,” he was quoted as saying by local media.

The NAB chairman also said that he was in favour of placing a ban on foreign NGOs working within Pakistan.

“These NGOs are working for foreign elements and they do get their funding from abroad,” he said.

Meanwhile, he also said that foreign agencies illegally abduct people and put the blame on the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.