CCPR/C/114/D/2134/2012 within the purview of the Committee. The Committee may only hear the present case to establish whether the decision to shelve the investigation was arbitrary and not in accordance with the law or due process rules or that justice had been denied. 4.4 The State party, furthermore, asserted that the communication amounted to an abuse of the right to submit communications, inasmuch as the authors had deliberately submitted unclear information to the Committee. According to the State party, there is no clear connection between the death of Karol Juliana Anzola Usuga at the hands of a criminal group in Medellín and the alleged disappearance of her father. It seemed that the authors were trying to mislead the Committee by portraying those events as connected to one another. The same would apply to the police statements by police officers who allegedly claimed that illegal armed groups had control over the territory in question. These assertions were unfounded and were intended to have the Committee make incursions into the investigative sphere. 4.5 Lastly, the State party argued that the submission of the complaint 16 years after the fact was also an abuse of the right to submit communications, i n the absence of a reasonable explanation from the authors that would make it possible to determine the reasons that kept them from submitting the complaint earlier. Authors’ comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 26 June 2012, the authors submitted that, given the severity of the violations of the Covenant and the passage of time, the Committee should address the issue of admissibility and the merits together. 5.2 The authors noted that, in the procedure established pursuant to the Optional Protocol, the parties have ample opportunity to present their factual and legal arguments regarding both the admissibility and the merits of the case. They pointed out that the joint consideration of the admissibility and merits of a communication is a procedural norm generally accepted by international human rights bodies, whereas their separate consideration is a possibility offered on an exceptional basis, as indicated in the Committee’s rules of procedure. 5.3 The authors stressed that paramilitary groups systematically engaged in enforced disappearances in the region where and at the time when Mr. Anzola and Mr. Molina were subjected to enforced disappearances. Specifically, the paramilitary group Autodefensas Campesinas del Magdalena Medio, operating under the command of Ramón Isaza and with the acquiescence of the military forces of the Bombona Battalion and the Fourteenth Brigade, based in Puerto Berrío, was act ive in the area of the Medellín-Bogotá motorway. 5.4 The authors stressed that the fear of being made victims of enforced disappearance themselves caused the wives of the disappeared men to give up their inquiries in the area, although the women nonetheless obtained information that implicated paramilitary groups in the disappearances and that i nformation was brought to the notice of the prosecutor ’s office. However, the disappearance of Mr. Anzola and Mr. Molina was not seriously and thoroughly investigated by the office, as indicated in the initial communication. 5.5 The authors cited the Committee’s jurisprudence to the effect that all States parties are under a duty “to investigate thoroughly alleged violations of human rights, and in particular forced disappearances of persons and violations of the right to life ” 13 and “to criminally prosecute, try and punish those deemed responsible for such __________________ 13 GE.15-15601 See the Committee’s Views on communications No. 563/1993, Bautista de Arellana v. Colombia, of 13 November 1995, para. 8.6; and No. 612/1995, Villafañe Chaparro et al. v. Colombia, of 29 July 1997, para. 8.8. 9/20