Pak security forces have not committed rights violation: Gilani

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has rejected charges of human rights violations by security forces made in a US State Department report, terming it part of propaganda to malign the country’s institutions.

“There is no question of human rights violations (by them),” the Dawn quoted Gilani, as saying.

“They want to malign our institutions,” he said about the latest report, and similar charges made on other occasions.

Gilani made the statement in the National Assembly after Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan drew the government’s attention to what he called a “most disquieting” story in newspapers.

According to the State Department report sent to Congress, thousands of political separatists and Taliban insurgents have disappeared into the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and some may even have been tortured or killed.

“The Pakistani government has made limited progress in advancing human rights and continues to face human rights challenges. There continue to be gross violations of human rights by Pakistani security forces,” the State Department report was quoted, as concluding.

Nisar said the US State Department and Congress had taken notice of the matter, but the Pakistani government had not.

Gilani said several foreign delegations had also raised similar concerns in their meetings with him, but Pakistan’s security forces had often complained of ineffective laws facilitating the release of suspected terrorists by courts on bail despite the killings of “thousands of our jawans”, and called for more effective laws showing “zero tolerance” to terrorism.

“If they are engaged in human rights violations, then why are they asking us to make more effective laws?” questioned Gilani. (ANI)