NPR

Concern Grows In Pakistan Over Cases Of Disappearance

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan counted more than 700 alleged disappearances last year. Since 2001, the group estimates that as many as 10,000 people have gone missing.
Friends of Nawaz Atta, a missing activist, accompany his mother at a police station to report the man's disappearance. Atta was taken by armed men in late October.

For one Pakistani mother, sunburn signals her desperation to find her son.

Zarjan Atta rode rickshaws and buses for four days on desert roads, deepening and reddening her brown skin, as she traveled from her village to Karachi, Pakistan's southern port mega-city.

That's where her son Nawaz, 23, was living with relatives and studying at Karachi University. Her relatives say armed men dragged him from their flat on Oct. 28. They were in civilian clothes.

They pushed the women and children into a room. They warned: If you speak, you'll be next.

The counted 728 alleged disappearances last year. Since 2001, the group estimates that up to 10,000 people have gone missing, with nearly 3,000 still unaccounted for. And

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