This is apropos of a news item about a symposium held by Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC) in Jeddah on the issue of Kashmir and the role of Muslim world to resolve the same. PRC is an organisation that has been highlighting the just cause of repatriation of those Urdu-speaking Pakistanis who have been languishing in UN-run refugee camps in Bangladesh for the last 40 years. These unfortunate people opted to remain Pakistanis in 1971 when Bangladesh came into being. But due to political reasons and fear of demographic impact, these inauspicious people couldn’t come to Pakistan.
As we welcome PRC initiative to discuss the Kashmir issue, we call them to also spare some time to take up the issues directly affecting Pakistan as well. There is a deep sense of alienation in Balochistan province and everyone is afraid that perhaps another human catastrophe is in the offing. Extra-judicial killings, illegal kidnappings and detentions of the Baloch nationalists and rebels, and wide spread revenge killing of non-Baloch population (mostly Urdu and Punjabi speaking civilians) remind us of East Pakistan of 1969 – 70. Perhaps, we are always more interested in faraway lands, forgetting or intentionally ignoring what’ being cooked in our own backyard.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
