Apprehending people and then denying any knowledge about them has in recent decades become an established practice for governments across Southasia, especially during counter-insurgency operations. Indeed, with the 25th annual International Day of the Disappeared taking place on 30 August, the situation looks almost as bad as anytime over the past quarter-century, with disappearances taking place on a regular basis in several parts of the region. Moreover, there is hardly any accountability, and impunity remains rampant essentially everywhere.
In Sri Lanka, more than 30,000 people (most likely the largest number per capita in Southasia) are thought to have disappeared over the past two decades. In India's Punjab, thousands of secret cremations of individuals killed in police custody throughout the 1980s have been uncovered in just a single district. Numerous others are known to have disappeared in Punjab, as well as in Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, the Northeast and, most recently, in Chhattisgarh. Since the peak of the insurgency in Kashmir in 1989, some 7000 people have been disappeared at the hands of Indian security forces, according to local activists.
In Pakistan, an increase of disappearances has taken place since October 2001, as hundreds have gone missing in the context of counter-insurgency measures in the US-led 'war on terror', including through renditions to US authorities. Unrest in Balochistan and Sindh over the past several years, meanwhile, has also resulted in hundreds of disappearances of Baloch and Sindhi nationalists. In Nepal, around 900 people are now estimated to have disappeared at the hands of the security forces, in addition to around 300 at the hands of Maoist rebels over the course of the decade-long civil war. Even in Bhutan, the UN records that five people were reported as disappeared. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, possibly tens of thousands are thought to have been disappeared at the hands of different armed entities over the years of conflict, though exact figures are impossible to come by. Finally, in Bangladesh, a few disappearances were reported during the violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the 1980s, besides those who went missing during the 1971 War of Liberation. It is notable, however, that disappearances have not been a feature of state repression in Bangladesh.
Constricted activism
Of course, violations are not taking place in a political vacuum. Amid the large number of politically driven insurgencies in Southasia, rebel groups have not shrunk from utilising disappearance as a tactic. However, governments have been responsible for by far the largest number of persons who have gone missing. State apparatuses across the region continue to fail to address reports of disappearances, and very few perpetrators have ever been brought to justice anywhere – a fact that can be argued as leading directly to the continuation of such abuses. This has left a significant burden on civil society to respond to and maintain pressure on governments and other violators. At the same time, though, the civil-society reaction itself has sometimes been difficult.