Refusing to Disappear: Daughter shares soul-rending ordeals after father 'taken away' in Pakistan

Aymun Sajid, daughter of Sajid Mehmood, who was abducted on the evening of spring 2016 by "Pakistan's state agencies", remembers the day clearly and still clutches the memories of her "Baba" who never came back.

In a personal account posted on the website of Amnesty International, she shared how she felt growing up without a father. Aymun shares that though she had heard about these disappearances and sympathized with the families she never thought that the same could happen to her.

"I felt sorry for the families held in the strangest limbo, with the children not knowing if they are orphaned or not, the wives not knowing if they are widowed or not, and the men themselves having no idea why they were picked up in the first place," she said.

In the diary post on the website of the London-based group, she shares that enforced disappearances in Pakistan started under the reign of military dictator General Pervez Musharraf and have continued ever since.

"Most often, male members of the family are abducted by state agencies on mere suspicion, due to their speaking out against official policies, or even for no apparent reason. No charges. No whereabouts. Nothing," she said.

Now, she misses her father at every step of her life, be it her first Ramadan, her first Eid, or her college life. His absence during the tea parties where whole families join could not go unnoticed.

"I remember that day like it was yesterday," she says while recalling the agony she felt the day her father was abducted. "They knocked on the door of my room. I was writing a story at that time. A fantasy story where I was the main character, with dragons and ninjas and evil robots," she continued sharing the memory of that day seemingly in a manner like it is still imbibed in her memory very clearly.

"Who is it?" She asked, confused. "We need to search," someone replied from the door.

"I was still clutching my pencil when I somehow moved my legs and walked out. Our house was ransacked. The cupboards were flung open, things laid strewn around and plainclothes men with masks and guns were everywhere. As I went past the couch and looked over my shoulder, I saw two men - one with a gun - searching through our toys," she remembered.

After a few minutes, the rooms emptied, the doors sounded, and they were gone. "Where's Baba?" my then 7-year-old sister asked my mom, as we stood in the middle of our own ransacked house.

She remembers saying over and over in her head, "Don't say it. Please don't say it." Her mother looked around the house, expressionless. "They took him."

Aymun, then a young innocent child, refused to process anything. Her heart did not believe what happened.

"I found the picture of the stars. The one I had cut out for Baba. It lay amongst the rest of the papers on the ground as if it was not any more important. As if it did not mean anything else," she said.

"I picked it up and held it in my hand. For a moment, I didn't do anything. Then my fingers came together, my palm clenched into a fist, and the paper crumpled. I walked over to the trash can and threw it away," she continued.

She felt incredibly alone on the first Eid without her Baba. Twelve-year-olds don't usually go to the High Court but she did. She was there to find out where in the world her father had disappeared.

Two years later, the High Court gave the final judgement, that her Baba be produced immediately.

In the two years that followed, she had learnt a lot of things - how to hope, how to numb feelings - and how to lie. At the age of 16, she was about to go to college - and her father was still not back.

As her father never returned, she realized that it's now up to the youth left behind - especially the women - to speak up for the forcibly disappeared.

( With inputs from ANI )