Let's talk about 2017 when Raza Mahmood Khan, 40, A Pakistani peace activist of Aghaz-e-Dosti (Initiation of Friendship) organization was abducted in the eastern city of Lahore, prompting fears for his safety amongst his family. He is known for his grassroots activism around the issue of India-Pakistan friendship.

Khan went missing on Saturday, 2nd December 2017, his brother Hamid Nasir told Al Jazeera, after attending an open discussion event on the topic of extremism. On Twitter, users shared news of Khan's disappearance using the #FindRaza hashtag.

Pakistan's Supreme Court took the country's security apparatus to task for the hundreds of missing person cases that remained unresolved in the country, casting doubt over the government's defense that those reported missing had disappeared of their own accord.

At least 1,498 cases of enforced disappearances remain pending with a government investigative commission on such cases, according to a report submitted to the top court.

The report said that more than 2,257 cases had been marked as resolved after the whereabouts of those reported missing had been traced. Hundreds of those people are being held in military-operated internment camps – where Pakistani law allows authorities to hold suspects without charge indefinitely – across the country's northwest.

Mehmood Hayat Khan, father of Raza Mahmood Khan gave a short yet powerful speech at South Asia Media Centre, “I don’t know whether I’m lucky or unlucky”, he said. “I feel unlucky because my son is missing. And we don’t know anything about his whereabouts. But I’m lucky to have all of you by my side here today and I feel proud to have fathered a son who felt the pain of those who were not even related to him. That is the only reason why he has been abducted. I thank you all for coming here today and becoming a voice for his retrieval”.

Coming to 2018, things haven't changed much. Former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Dineshwar Sharma, who was appointed as the government’s special representative to carry forward a dialogue with all sections of the people in Jammu and Kashmir, has said that he would ensure that “normalcy returns to the State as soon as possible.”

“Peace must be restored in Kashmir,” Sharma had declared in an interview soon after his appointment in October. That’s a long haul: before peace comes trust. An indication of it came in November when chief minister Mehbooba Mufti—with the benign approval of New Delhi—ordered the withdrawal of cases against more than 4,000 “stone-pelters”, mostly youngsters.

First Post reported on the current situation in Kashmir. Under Opposition fire over the government's "tough posturing", Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Wednesday that even though the situation cannot be set right by the use of police and security forces alone, things were improving in the state.

She also asserted that it was India alone that could address the issues facing the state.

"I am alive to the situation for the past couple of years...the situation is limping back to normal but is still grave. I am not saying the situation has returned to normal," the chief minister said.

She added that the situation cannot be set right by the government alone and all stakeholders had to come together to set it right through the political process.

"We cannot set it right through the use of police and security forces," Mufti said in her reply to the motion of thanks to the Governor's address in the state Legislative Assembly in Jammu.

She said it was only India that can address the issues facing the people of the state.