For the first time since the second sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on November 3, the missing persons — Pakistan’s most known children of a lesser god — were able to get a hearing last week.

But it was not the chief justice they claim as their own, who was lending his ears to their plight. Rather, it was deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who nevertheless rose to the occasion at his Model Town residence and promised them justice as best as he could provide if his party returned to power in the forthcoming general elections.

Given the ground realities, it is a long shot and by the looks of it, the hapless loved ones of the missing persons will continue to yearn for a reunion for quite some time to come.

Nothing brings more embarrassment to Pakistan — since March 9 last year, a constant in this beleaguered nation’s life — than the continued detention of deposed chief justice.

The status quo is a grim reminder of how bad and untenable the situation has become. In no other country of any recognition, does this kind of Machiavellian design exist as a manifestation of state policy.

The drama surrounding the patently absurd detention of legal eagles including Supreme Court Bar Association President Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan and Tariq Mehmood beyond their maximum ninety-day period is beyond imagination.

But trust General (retired) Pervez Musharraf to accomplish the impossible in the blink of an eye without remorse and regardless of what chapters of shame it writes for this hapless nation.

The spectacle of a virtually chained ‘independent’ judiciary — well past the lifting of the Emergency — betrays an insecure mind trapped in the vortex of self-induced phobia.

But at the same time, it makes light of predictions made after Musharraf grudgingly shed his military uniform and walked into another presidential term that he would not be able to control the chain of events in its aftermath.

On his recent tour of important European capitals, Musharraf continued to blunder along with a highly ill-conceived idea of distributing a dossier of alleged corruption and wrongdoings pertaining to the deposed chief justice.

It did not matter to his advisors that none of the allegations in the dossier have been proven in a court of law and a similar filing was in fact, thrown out by the apex court for slander and, in an unprecedented move, a fine imposed on the Musharraf administration for the malicious content.

In a highly questionable drive that was not commensurate with the office of the president, Musharraf continued to label the former top judge as “inept” and “corrupt” on the European jaunt.

It was obviously a weak-kneed ploy to counter the likely critique that he was certain to draw for sacking Mr. Iftikhar Chaudhry and five dozen judges of the superior courts, who were then all detained.

Musharraf’s conduct embarrassed Pakistan no end. But this was not the end of the issue as the deposed chief justice was forced, as a matter of right, to respond to the charges.

As a consequence, he sent a rejoinder to every leader Musharraf met on the ‘image rebuilding’ tour and fora he addressed to malign the ex-top adjudicator.

Meanwhile back home, a notice has been served on the deposed chief justice twice, asking him to vacate his residence, which the judges can retain in any case for six months. Mr. Chaudhry has refused to accept the directives issued courtesy the Public Works Department. It is just another attempt in what has become a familiar regime of harassment.

The deposition of the former top judge that has dealt a severe blow to the families of the missing persons. They know not when the wait to be united with their loved ones will end and life resume. For months and years, it has been on hold, much like inmates sinking on death row.

So visible is the strife on their forlorn faces when they assemble — now less frequently in the changed circumstances — that one cannot but be shamed by the sheer helplessness at the state-wrought agony.

The only time Musharraf tried to explain the “disappearances” was in the wake of the Lal Masjid operation when he plainly dismissed any case (for relief to the missing persons) with acid suggestions that while many (amongst the “disappeared”) had gone astray, still others simply left their own families without informing them.

What does this tell about Pakistan to the outside world?

With those endless wire images — all pictures of pain — and stories about human spirit flailing precariously between hope and despair, our once-promised land only looks like a remnant of lost civilization.

To be sure, no one condones any act against the state. But surely, none can be denied the right to defend for any manner of crime. In the case of the missing persons, more than four hundred according to some reports, few if any, have had recourse to a proper trial. Forget trial, the families haven’t even seen their loved ones in the autumn avatar.

They have been crying, not for any favour, but recourse to law — still others only straining for a fleeting glimpse of the missing loved ones, only to breathe in the knowledge that they live. Such is the stuff desperation is made of.

Indifference to their plight at the official level is so acute that it appears the state has lost its soul. In fact, had it not been for the single-minded and undying resolve of the then chief justice, probably the sun would have set in the lives of many of these tormented souls, a long time ago.

A New York Times dispatch last year on the issue with the chief justice still locked in a legal challenge over his dismissal by General Pervez Musharraf made for poignant reading.

Recalling the top adjudicator’s resolve to help her like, Amina Janjua, who is leading the fight for the families of the missing under the aegis of Defence of Human Rights, said of a hearing on March 8:

“He was very fatherly. I was in tears. He said: Be comforted. We are using every channel, and every person is going to be released, and we are going to continue the hearings until the last person is released. On March 8, he was speaking like this. The very next day, he was not in his chair.”
Some pundits attribute one of the reasons that invoked the first presidential action against the chief justice to the judge’s bold and consistent stand on the missing persons. The aftermath of the February 18 polls will determine who will go missing, next.