Zeenat Shahzadi Remains Missing

Posted byalaiwahPosted inMissing Persons in PakistanTags:, , , , , ,

Clip_6The 24-year-old journalist and activist Zeenat Shahzadi remains missing.

After disappearing on her way to work in August 2015, all attempts to learn of her whereabouts have failed. Losing hope, her younger brother committed suicide on March 24, 2016.

Prior to her disappearance, Shahzadi was pursuing the safe recovery of a young Indian engineer arrested by Pakistani intelligence agencies in November 2012. Although he has recently been produced and sentenced by a military court for entering Pakistan illegally, still there is no news of Shahzadi’s whereabouts.

Based on information received from Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, ( http://www.firstpost.com/india/missing-mumbai-techie-hamid-ansari-found-in-custody-of-pakistani-army-2585182.html), The Express Tribune (http://omnifeed.com/article/tribune.com.pk/story/1076159/disappearance-govt-urged-to-recover-missing-journalist/) + http://www.dawn.com/news/1226830 + NDTV (http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/family-of-missing-pak-journalist-who-helped-indian-seek-nawaz-sharifs-help-1291215), The Telegraph (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160328/jsp/nation/story_76845.jsp#.Vv45B0dJejc).

On August 19, 2015, Zeenat, working for the Daily Nai Khabar and the Metro News television channel in Lahore, Punjab, disappeared while on her way to work in an auto-rickshaw. She was to appear before the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances on August 24, but before that she was disappeared by plain-clothed persons. Police registered an abduction case against “unknown men”.

According to Zeenat’s older brother Latif, Zeenat had moved an application with the Supreme Court’s human rights cell on behalf of Fauzia Ansari, mother of Hamid Ansari, an engineer and MBA from Bombay reported missing in Pakistan since Nov 2012.

Being a social worker and journalist, Zeenat got interested in the case after reading stories about Ansari’s love story with a Pakistani girl from Kohat, KP where the parents of the girl wanted to marry her in their family to help for his recovery. The girl had met Ansari through Facebook.

In August 2013, Zeenat secured a special power of attorney from Fauzia, mother of Ansari and a college lecturer in Mumbai. Ansari’s father Nihal is a retired bank official.

Clip_11The then 28-year-old Indian techie had failed to obtain a visa to visit Pakistan. Ansari arrived in Kabul on Nov 4, 2012, and somehow reached Pakistan. He put up with an online friend till another friend booked him a hotel room in Kohat. On Nov 14 that year, the station house officer (SHO) of police took Ansari away and handed him over to an officer of a security agency. Attempts to register an FIR for his arrest and detention failed.

In the meantime, Zeenat sent an application to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, which ordered the registration of an FIR in 2014. She also filed a habeas corpus plea before the Peshawar High Court.
Latif said Zeenat had received threats from unknown people who asked her not to pursue the case. “We too asked her not to put her life at risk, but she said she wanted to help Ansari out of humanity.”

On Jan 11, 2016, the Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan, Mussaratullah Khan informed the Peshawar High Court that the defence ministry had revealed that Ansari was in the custody of the army and was being court-martialed.

In the Month of February, a military court is said to have jailed Ansari for three years on the charges of illegally entering Pakistan and “spying”.

However, Zeenat’s whereabouts are still unknown. On March 24, her younger brother Saddam Hussain, a 12th grade student, committed suicide by hanging himself. He was depressed about her sister. His elder brother, Latif, says his father is still in shock and has stopped talking, and her mother remains in a coma. Zeenat’s disappearance has been included among the missing person’s cases being probed by a joint investigation team (JIT). The JIT has said the case from her family will be heard in April, but no date has been announced.

Published by alaiwah

ALAIWAH'S PHILOSOPHY About 12 years ago, while studying Arabic in Cairo, I became friends with some Egyptian students. As we got to know each other better we also became concerned about each other’s way of life. They wanted to save my soul from eternally burning in hell by converting me to Islam. I wanted to save them from wasting their real life for an illusory afterlife by converting them to the secular worldview I grew up with. In one of our discussions they asked me if I was sure that there is no proof for God’s existence. The question took me by surprise. Where I had been intellectually socialized it was taken for granted that there was none. I tried to remember Kant’s critique of the ontological proof for God. “Fine,” Muhammad said, “but what about this table, does its existence depend on a cause?” “Of course,” I answered. “And its cause depends on a further cause?” Muhammad was referring to the metaphysical proof for God’s existence, first formulated by the Muslim philosopher Avicenna. Avicenna argues, things that depend on a cause for their existence must have something that exists through itself as their first cause. And this necessary existent is God. I had a counter-argument to that to which they in turn had a rejoinder. The discussion ended inconclusively. I did not convert to Islam, nor did my Egyptian friends become atheists. But I learned an important lesson from our discussions: that I hadn’t properly thought through some of the most basic convictions underlying my way of life and worldview — from God’s existence to the human good. The challenge of my Egyptian friends forced me to think hard about these issues and defend views that had never been questioned in the milieu where I came from. These discussions gave me first-hand insight into how deeply divided we are on fundamental moral, religious and philosophical questions. While many find these disagreements disheartening, I will argue that they can be a good thing — if we manage to make them fruitful for a culture debate. Can we be sure that our beliefs about the world match how the world actually is and that our subjective preferences match what is objectively in our best interest? If the truth is important to us these are pressing questions. We might value the truth for different reasons: because we want to live a life that is good and doesn’t just appear so; because we take knowing the truth to be an important component of the good life; because we consider living by the truth a moral obligation independent of any consequences; or because we want to come closer to God who is the Truth. Of course we wouldn’t hold our beliefs and values if we weren’t convinced that they are true. But that’s no evidence that they are. Weren’t my Egyptian friends just as convinced of their views as I was of mine? More generally: don’t we find a bewildering diversity of beliefs and values, all held with great conviction, across different times and cultures? If considerations such as these lead you to concede that your present convictions could be false, then you are a fallibilist. And if you are a fallibilist you can see why valuing the truth and valuing a culture of debate are related: because you will want to critically examine your beliefs and values, for which a culture of debate offers an excellent setting.

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