Editorial
The vanishing acts
The administration has a lot to answer for
It is very disconcerting that people are disappearing in thin air and nobody has any idea of their whereabouts. One wonders where the 17 people, who were picked up by the law enforcing agencies and untraceable for the last 9 months, according to a human rights body, are. According to another rights watch body, 22 persons remain untraceable in eight months since January 2010.
This phenomenon is certainly worrying and we strongly endorse the sentiments of the rights body as well as the Chairman of the NHRC, that the matter has taken an alarming proportion after the assumption of office by the AL led grand alliance.
Our worry stems from the fact that allegedly these people were picked up by the law enforcing agencies, and some of them have ended up as dead bodies dumped on roads. We fail to understand how one can go missing after being apprehended by the law enforcing agencies. Is it not mandatory to register every arrest and if they were not arrested what was their status when picked up by the police? We feel that this is a gross violation of rights of individuals and given that so many remain untraceable, some of who are political party men, the culture of impunity has been allowed to odiously manifest in the activities of those that are supposed to give us guarantee of life and security.
Even if we consider that these are all missing persons, we wonder whether the police have done their duty of conducting proper inquiry into the circumstances. If so what have they come up with? We have reasons to believe that the police did not record missing person complaints which some of their family members wanted to lodge.
This is a pathetic picture of our commitment to rule of law and human rights. We feel that a clarification by the ministry of home is in order and that must be done quickly. Every single person, that has gone missing, allegedly after being picked up by the police or RAB, must be accounted for.
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