NUZHAT NAZAR

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights has challenged the bonafides of the Human Rights Commission South Asia whose report about the operation in Karachi had been flaunted by the Rangers during the Committee's previous as 'proof' of its complying with human rights obligations during operations in Karachi.

At the meeting of the Senate Committee late last month the Rangers representative had flaunted a report of what he claimed as Sweden based Human Rights Committee South Asia endorsing the Rangers led operation as complying with human rights standards. It was challenged by Senator Farhatullah Babar who demanded complete information about it.

Rangers gave the website of the Human Rights Committee of South Asia as www.hrcsa.org but its representative did not attend the meeting.

Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the Rangers had allowed themselves to be misled into taking refuge behind the report of an unknown human rights body that appeared to be fake.

He said that he visited the site and found the names of journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai as its Afghanistan correspondent and one Hilal Usmani as its so called Sindh correspondent. He said that on contacting Rahimullah Yousufzai the latter denied having any links whatsoever with the said Human Rights Committee South Asia let alone working as its Afghanistan correspondent as claimed in the web site. He said that several e-mails sent at the address of Hilal Usmani bounced back as undelivered.

This clearly seems to be a fake organization which has taken upon itself the task to white wash the human rights violations by law enforcing agencies on selective basis, he said.

Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the mater be referred to the Ministry of IT and other investigation agencies to probe into it and expose the elements behind it.

The issue is not merely that the Senate committee had been misled by flaunting the report of a fake organisation but the issue was that someone had misled the Rangers into a trap that had destroyed its credibility.

People will no longer believe in the tall claims of achievements of Rangers nor in its protestations of innocence of human rights violations, he said. If for nothing else, at least for the sake of credibility of the military dominated Rangers the matter needs to be investigated. The Committee decided to refer the matter to the investigation agencies.