Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights

PAKISTAN: ‘Missing Teenagers Lured by Islamist Militants’

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Apr 6 2007 (IPS) - “I am in search of my son, who went missing three months ago from the neighbourhood. We are told that he is in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban,” said Gul Afzal, a resident of Ghareebabad hamlet in Mardan, North Western Frontier Province (NWFP).

With tearful eyes he says that his son Gul Wali, 17, was deeply religious, but was never the type that would take up arms.

Unfortunately Gul Afzal is not the only father searching for his lost son. There are many families who are desperate to get news of missing brothers and sons in the autonomous North and South Waziristan, and Tank, Dir, Buner and Mardan districts in NWFP.

Intelligence officials told IPS that one year ago, some militants took a 15-year-old boy from Shabqadar village to South Waziristan Agency where he was given training to be a suicide bomber.

His parents who were searching for their missing son received a message one day from a militant group that they should consider themselves lucky that their son had blown himself up in an attack killing five foreign troops in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan.

Chief of city police in Peshawar, capital of NWFP, Abdul Majeed Marwat says the militants kidnap teenaged boys because they are easy to brainwash. The boys are told that they would get a ticket to paradise if they killed western soldiers in Afghanistan or their Afghan colleagues, he said.

In the tribal Dara Adamkhel area along the border with Afghanistan, villagers are extremely concerned about their school going boys between 13 and 20 years who are being taken to an undisclosed location by a militant group that has been providing ‘hatred-based’ education.

Many children have been picked up from schools and off the streets in Dara Adamkhel’s Bazi Khel, Shiraki, Bosti Khel and Zore Kali localities.

“Unidentified people picked up my nephew, a sixth class student, from his school. He returned home after three weeks,” said a tribesman. “We can’t challenge the powerful extremists who enjoy all kinds of facilities. Even the local administration condones their training activities,” complained a perturbed parent.

“The boy does not tell us much about the activities of his captors. He keeps silent. He has not divulged anything about the mysterious people,” he said.

On Mar. 27 at a public rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, in reply to a woman who asked for his help to locate her missing son, said that those abducted are in the custody of militant groups and not the government.

In fact, the suspension of the chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, last month, is also being linked to his continuous warnings to the government to locate persons reported missing by their families. Some 200 such families have recently started a campaign for the recovery of their kidnapped relatives.

“The missing persons might have been lured by the Jihadists, who use them in the fight in Kashmir, Afghanistan and beyond,” Musharraf said.

Three month ago, two children were picked up from a school in the Dara Adamkhel. They returned home after spending more than 20 days in the so-called “unknown place”.

Locals believe Dara Adamkhel has become a hub of militant activities, particularly its villages perched on rugged mountains.

On Apr. 3, armed men in Tank district, adjacent to South Waziristan Agency, stormed the home of principal Farid Mahsud of the private Oxford Public School in Sheikh Shahnawaz Bhatta area, manhandled women and whisked him and his brother away. Two days later, the men were set free but are tightlipped about the incident.

The government has closed down schools in Tank. According to sources that cannot be named, militant groups are targetting schools for new recruits. Anxious parents and community members fear that their children may be lured away for training in subversive activities.

“Last year, three children were kidnapped by some militants from Dir district. Later, they were traced in South Waziristan at a training camp,” an intelligence official told IPS.

Their parents approached the militants with requests to release the boys. But the militants turned them down saying they had spent huge amounts on their training. Eventually each family had to pay Rs 50,000 (a little over 1,000 dollars) to secure their release. “I have restricted my son to the house and school since then,” one of the parents confided.

These parents were among the fortunate few. Others who have searched various border areas have been turned away. “I have searched North, South Waziristan and Tank for my child. I have also sought help from militants, but they have refused to share my worries. They asked me to leave the area,” said a distraught father.

The general insecurity has forced a teacher in North Waziristan to shift his family to Peshawar. “I took the decision for the safety of my three daughters and son. I want to raise them in a good environment,” he said wishing to remain unidentified.