ISLAMABAD: Former military ruler General (r) Pervez Musharraf secretly handed over as many as 4,000 Pakistanis to foreign countries, mainly to the United States, Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances head Justice (r) Javed Iqbal said on Monday. In a briefing to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights, Justice (r) Iqbal, who is also chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), said that former interior minister Aftab Sherpao was also part of the ‘secret handover’. He further said the Musharraf regime extradited those Pakistanis in exchange of US dollars. “There is no provision in the country’s law for such extraditions. No one including the parliament ever questioned the role of Musharraf and Sherpao in this dark episode,” he regretted.”As per the law and the constitution, how could someone secretly hand over Pakistani nationals to any other country?” he questioned, adding that Musharraf’s illegal and unlawful action must have been investigated. Speaking on the missing persons issue, Justice (r) Iqbal said some foreign elements were also involved in enforced disappearances to give a bad name to the country’s secret agencies, including the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Military Intelligence (MI). He claimed that the figures of missing persons in Balochistan were often exaggerated. There were several groups operating in the province and many missing persons themselves had joined those outfits, he insisted. He said he had asked the Balochistan authorities to provide official figures about the missing persons but they did not respond to his request. Justice (r) Iqbal said he will contact Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Manzoor Pashteen to inquire about the matter of missing persons. Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party MNA Naseema Hafeez lamented how the mainstream media had blocked out Pashteen and the PTM.”Manzoor Pashteen is being deliberately ignored by our media,” said the MNA. “He is a Pakistani who is talking about missing persons. His rally was attended by women who were carrying the pictures of their missing family members,” she said. At this, Justice Iqbal said Pashteen has suddenly emerged on the scene even though the matter of missing persons has been there for years. “[But] I will get in touch with him and look into his list of missing persons,” he said. Justice (r) Iqbal said that many formerly missing persons, when recovered, choose not to inform the commission of their ordeals out of fright. He said all the departments cooperated with the commission’s investigations and that in 70 per cent of cases, the missing persons were actually found involved in militancy. He, however, made it clear that if a person is involved in militancy it does not mean that his family too should be considered militants. Strongly defending the ban on international NGOs, Justice Iqbal said if he had any authority he would have never allowed such foreign organisations to operate in Pakistan.He claimed that most of the international NGOs under the garb of welfare schemes worked on the agenda of forging agencies. Published in Daily Times, April 17th 2018.