Up to 700 men may have been illegally detained but relatives are starting to hope they may see their loved ones again
They came in the middle of the night. The village of Darya Khan, where electricity is rare and winter nights are very cold, was silent when the two police vans arrived.
"We were sleeping. They smashed in the door and went straight for my son," said Muhammad Azim, 65. "They beat me and my wife and then they left. They took the boy. We have heard nothing since from anyone."
The "boy" was 21-year-old Obaidullah, a student of Islamic studies at a religious school in the city of Faisalabad in central Pakistan. He was at home in his village in the south of Punjab province because he had just got married.
Obaidullah's father, an illiterate labourer, said he has no idea why his son was taken. "He was just a simple student. We are poor people, too poor to be involved in politics or anything like that," he said.
The raid took place last month. No charges have been framed and no information about the case is available but, though security officials said they were unaware of the individual case, it is certain that the authorities suspected Obaidullah was involved with Islamic extremist groups.
Campaigners call such operations "abductions" and estimate that thousands of "disappeared" are currently being held without trial.
The campaigners say they have positively identified 700 detainees. Nothing, however, has been heard of Obaidullah since the raid seven weeks ago.
Pakistan's security services, both military and civilian, say the detentions are a necessary evil.
"We are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the country safe," one intelligence official told the Guardian. "We have no choice."
Pakistan has suffered hundreds of attacks by Islamic militants in recent years which have killed at least 10,000 civilians, and 7,000 policemen and soldiers.
For many years the detention facilities were run without fear of scrutiny, be it from families, from politicians or from the courts. This, however, may be changing, offering some slim hope to families that they will see their loved ones again.
This year, the main military intelligence service, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was forced by the supreme court to produce seven men at a hearing in Islamabad, the capital.
The detainees were part of an 11-strong group first held on charges of involvement in a string of suicide bombings against military targets between November 2007 and January 2008. Though acquitted by a civilian court in 2010 they were immediately detained again by the ISI. Four of the men died of "natural causes" while in the agency's custody, a senior security official said.
"Yes, they were not fed five-course dinners. Yes, they were not staying in the Marriott. But there was no deliberate attempt to starve them to death or poison them or anything like that," he said. "We had no reason to torture them. They had already accepted all that they had done."
The men, recently handed over to civilian authorities, were brought before the judges in an appalling physical state. Their lawyer told the court they had not seen sunlight for months. Emaciated, disorientated, some unable to stand, they had an emotional reunion with family members.
"They picked me up from my shop. No one has ever explained to us why we are being held," Abdul Majid, 23, shouted to reporters as he was led away after the hearing. "Either take our life or let us go."
Despite the men's terrible condition, the case has encouraged other families.
"We are expecting a lot from the supreme court because it is the only institution which is listening to us," said Noor Hassan, a 45-year-old hawker whose son Sajadul, 22, was picked up last July on his way home from the religious school where he was studying. "A pickup truck with police in it took him away. Witnesses told us. No official has admitted it but we are certain," Hassan said.
The earliest secret detentions identified by campaigners date back to the early 1990s. But cases began to increase in late 2001 as Pakistani authorities moved against some of the militant groups within the country in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Some detainees were handed over to US services or interrogated in their presence.
The numbers of abductions rose dramatically between 2006 and 2007, when Pakistan itself became a victim of intense Islamic militant violence. They continued after the country returned to civilian rule in 2008.
Activists seeking greater autonomy for the resource-rich south-western province of Balochistan have also been targeted. As militants in the province stepped up the violence, the abductions and associated killings there also rose..
After years of denial, Pakistani security agencies now admit that they detain large numbers of people, but they claim they hold only individuals whom security services are "100% sure" are involved in extremist violence.
"Yes we are picking people up. We would prefer not to have to but it is very difficult when there are problems with getting evidence, witnesses don't want to testify, and judges and policemen are intimidated," one senior Pakistani security official said. "Either we keep them or they are freed to go back to what they were doing. We hear about their rights but what about the rights of the victims?"
Analysts agree that there are problems within the court system. "Excesses have happened but it's a very tricky issue," said Ejaz Haider, director of the Jinnah Institute thinktank in Islamabad. "Many terrorists have been let off the hook and that is extremely frustrating for the security agencies. So one begins to understand why there would be these disappearances and extrajudicial killings."
Dozens of families gathered in the capital last month to protest against the detention of their relatives. Many had travelled from the southern Punjab, strongholds of violent hardline groups such as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.
Such outfits have been used as proxies by the Pakistani security establishment over recent decades but some members have now turned against their former masters.
Other relatives had come from the restive zone close to the Afghan frontier where new legislation allows internment of individuals who are deemed a terrorist threat.
Ishfaq Ahmed Kakakhel's cousin, a teacher in the town of Nowshera, about 50 miles from the Afghan frontier, was detained last October. "We've heard from other detainees who have been released that he has been badly abused, physically and mentally," Kakakhel said.
Such abuse appears to be systematic. A letter smuggled out from one detainee and obtained by the Guardian describes repeated beatings with fists and metal-tipped staves, being forced to stand or sit for days at a time, having heavy iron weights rolled over legs and arms to crush all the muscles "to a pulp" and undergoing a form of water torture.
"Four men took hold of my arms and legs, others beat my wrists and feet and one repeatedly poured water into my mouth and nose," the detainee, a military cleric who is still in detention, wrote in the letter smuggled out three years after his arrest in 2004.
Though relations have deteriorated significantly over the past 18 months, for many years the ISI worked with US and other western agencies as a partner in the global "war on terror" to hunt wanted individuals belonging to al-Qaida or otherwise deemed to be an international threat.
However, the detentions have further fuelled existing anti-western feeling in Pakistan. At the recent protests, demonstrators brandished a placard saying: "Take back your dollars [in aid] and return our loved ones." Another read: "US go home, you are violating our human rights."
Western intelligence agencies initially only focused their attention on individuals linked to al-Qaida. Over the last decade their interest has broadened.
Some families have been told by the authorities that their relatives were not detained but were killed fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Thousands of young Pakistani men have crossed the frontier to fight with insurgents against Nato and Afghan government troops there in recent years.
Muhammad Yusuf Waseem, a 72-year-old retired bank clerk from Kabirwala in southern Punjab, was told that his 18-year-old son, who disappeared in August 2004, was among those killed fighting alongside the Taliban.
"I don't believe it," he said. "He was just an ordinary kid. He did nothing other than go to the shop and come back home. He had just taken his exams and had no contact with any political or militant group. He is my youngest son and I want to see him again before I die."
Additional reporting by Naveed Ahmad