LAST week I wrote about the distinguished retired army officer, Brigadier Mohammed Taj, SJ and Bar, who, on July 1, was assaulted by an Inter-Services Intelligence major. Since then, it has been reported that President General Pervez Musharraf did the right thing and telephoned the brigadier to express his regrets.

No doubt, the general will ensure that if circumstances warrant that he run such agencies that function as does the ISI, some efforts will be made to enlist better men — if that be at all possible.

I also wrote about a couple of ‘missing’ men who had been ‘picked up’ by our agencies, and also about the hearing of six petitions pertaining to illegal detentions that had been heard by Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Mohammad Afzal Soomro of the Sindh High Court on July 11.

The court had summoned a serving officer, Lt Colonel Khalid Iqbal Sahoo, Assistant Judge Advocate-General, who wears the uniform of the army. He filed on behalf of the ISI and Military Intelligence a comment which stated that both these agencies were under the administrative control of the defence ministry but that the ministry had no operational control over them. His contention was that the six detainees were neither picked up nor were they sought in any case, nor were they held in custody. In short, no trace of the six had been found.

Now we have the case of two missing nephews of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti — Bilal Bugti and Murtaza Bugti. On July 17 the Sindh High Court issued notices to the advocate-general of Sindh and others summoning them to appear on July 25 in the matter of a petition filed by Bilal’s father, Haji Mir Hasan Bugti. Allegedly, the two were picked up on July 14 by members of one of our law enforcement agencies that constantly transgress the law. The two men have not been produced before any court nor do their families know where they are.

Presumably, the government lawyers who will attend on notice will make the same noises as did Colonel Sahoo and perhaps another JAG officer will be called to produce another statement on behalf of the defence ministry shrugging off its responsibility.

But can it shrug off responsibility? Let us take the statement of Colonel Sahoo at face its value and assume, against all odds, that he stated the truth, the entire truth, and nothing but the truth. He conceded that the defence ministry had administrative control over the ISI.

The distinction between administrative and operational control is simple to understand. What it means is that the ministry has power to appoint, to remove, to determine policy, and to identify objectives, but the ISI is given discretion as to how to proceed, depending on local circumstances.

It is as if a master gives a task to a servant and leaves the precise method to achieve that task within his discretion. It is obvious that in such circumstances the ministry has the right to seek a report at any time as to what is the precise status of the operation, so as to enable it to determine the success of the operation and, if necessary, to remove or transfer the officers carrying it out for their unsatisfactory or illegal performance.

It is inconceivable that the ISI officers can refuse to give a report to the defence ministry (and therefore to the High Court) as to when and why they have detained the men in question and where these men have been detained. A refusal is clear contempt of court, both by the ministry and by the ISI.

However, this time, on July 25, the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed is presiding over the bench and he will be quite within his rights to ask the ministry to submit a truthful reply, and, what is all important, stress that it accept legal responsibility for the actions of its agencies.

After all, the liberty of two men, presumed innocent, is involved. It is expected that the government, for all practical purposes headed by a law and Constitution-abiding President, General Pervez Musharraf, will do nothing — repeat, nothing.

Now, over to a press report of July 20, the headline reads ‘Defence secretary confirms lack of operational control over ISI, MI.’ In yet another case of a missing person, this time Munir Mengal, who heads a Dubai-based television channel called ‘Voice of Baloch,’ the defence secretary, retired Lt Gen Tariq Waseem Ghazi, confirmed in a sworn affidavit filed in the Sindh High Court on July 19 that his ministry had no operational control over the two rogue agencies and therefore was unable to enforce the court’s order on either agency in matters relating to detentions. It could only pass on directions — that was all.

Mengal’s wife has filed a petition accusing ‘some law enforcement agencies’ of having picked up her husband on his arrival in Karachi from Dubai on April 4, after which date he simply disappeared. The defence secretary’s affidavit also mentioned the fact that the ISI and MI had been asked to locate Mengal and produce him before the court, but that both had denied any knowledge of his arrest or detention.

On July 20, Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro sat to hear ten petitions challenging the ‘detention’ of ten men. They expressed their misgivings over the statements of the defence secretary and the assistant JAG and asked the government counsel to separately file details of what, if any, efforts have been made by the government to locate or recover the various missing ‘detainees.’

As they rightly observed, “Merely filing a statement that the law enforcement agencies have neither arrested nor detained the detainee is not a sufficient explanation against the background that the arrest of the citizens is attributed to the law enforcement agencies.”

Of paramount importance is the fact — if we really are not a banana republic — that we cannot just have people disappearing without trace and a government that makes excuses and pleads ignorance and, thus, helplessness. As it is, we are undoubtedly a Third World country — though some may demur at this. But do we really want to sink lower, or is the aim to rise? Why should the people of Pakistan suffer because of the follies, faults and foibles of their governments?

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk