ISLAMABAD: Former PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar has called for launching ‘Civilian Terrorism victims Rehabilitation’ project and demanded to give an end to treating victims as mere statistics in collateral losses.

Speaking at a seminar on ‘Sustainable Peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”, organised by a local NGO, he also stressed the need to stop mysterious disappearances and a full disclosure about the inmates of internment centres and the status of cases against them, said a press release issued here on Friday. Deploring that Parliamentary questions on these issues were never answered, he said that time has come to take the bull by the horns if the state wishes to channel voices like that of Pushtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) into a peaceful inclusive channel.

About mysterious disappearances, he said that “Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulation” promulgated in 2011 was given a back dated effect from 2008 to enable the security agencies bring into the open those in their custody from 2008. They were to be held in ‘internment centres’ for trial in the courts. However, no one knows how many internment centres were set up, where, how many alleged militants kept in these centres, deaths in custody and whether they were being tried in courts and asked why this secrecy. The Coalition Support Fund has compensated material losses in the war but no institutional arrangements are made for reparations for the loss of civilian lives, he said. The primary responsibility for compensation is that of the Pakistani state he said. Not demanding reparations on behalf of victims is a crime that needed to be investigated.

He recalled that in May 2013 the Peshawar High Court ruled that drone strikes were illegal and should be declared a war crime and asked the government to raise the issue of compensation with the UN Secretary General. The Senate also passed a unanimous Resolution to this effect in December last.

He said the according to reports a 40 million dollars Pakistani Civilian Assistance Fund (PCAF) had been set up sometime back and asked whether the money had reached the civilian victims of drone strikes? He said that for the first time people of FATA and KPK were demanding peace and security with honor and dignity instead of mundane developmental projects. For the first time also there was a clear identification of the section of the state responsible for their destruction and humiliation. Babar also warned against putting up artificial resistance to the legitimate demands of the people which brought to mind the setting up of Al Shams and Al Bader type outfits in the former East Pakistan in early 70’s.

He said that freedom of expression had been stifled through various means including self censorship, taking channels off air, forcibly stopping distribution of newspapers and other media content in selected areas without recourse to law and even without the knowledge of interior and information ministries and PEMRA.—PR