Speakers at missing persons’ conference slam agencies’ role in abductions

Speakers at a seminar on the issue of Baloch missing persons on Sunday praised the judiciary vis-à-vis the recovery of the missing persons and said now it had become an established fact that intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces were involved in abduction of the people in Balochistan.
They urged the chief justice of Pakistan to try those involved in these disappearances besides recovery of missing persons in the province.
The seminar was organised at the Quetta Press Club by the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), an organisation of family members of the missing province with the topic, “Are the enforced disappearances and their killing and dumping of bodies not violation of law and constitution”. In the seminar, a number of members of the families of missing persons narrated their stories about disappearances of their near and dear and the mental agony they had been experiencing.
“I have lost my eye sight due to weeping for my young son Hafiz Saeedur Rahman who was whisked away by agencies nine years ago and now after having gone through operation, I am able to see something, but not sure would recognize my son, if he comes before me,” said Ghulam Rasool, the father of a missing person.
A young lady, Saeeda Baloch, said she had been struggling to secure the release of her brother Zakir Majeed Baloch, a political activist, adding although she had been consoling her mother that one day she would see her son, she (Saeeda) had become disappointed that she would never meet him.
Nasrullah Baloch, the VBMP chairman, said the relatives of missing persons had been disappointed with the lack of progress over their petitions regarding the missing of their kith and kin and decided not to appear before the court of chief justice of Pakistan. However, he said, some of the relatives of the missing persons had pinned their hopes on the courts and pursued their petitions.
He said the recent measures by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry for the recovery of some of the missing persons had created a ray of hope among the disappointed families. He hoped that the chief justice would not give up the process rather continue court pressure on the intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces to bring the missing persons to surface. He said the missing persons now had become an international issue due to the struggle of families of the missing persons.
Criticising the incumbent government, he said political workers were being picked up by government agencies in the regime of Pervez Musharraf, but in this so-called democratic government, more than 430 bullet-riddled bodies of youth had been found dumped and thousands of political workers had gone missing.
“A large number of people, including women and had children have been missing from Kohlu and Dera Bugti where military operation was carried and it is feared that they have been buried in mass graves,” the VBMP president said.
He regretted that before the elections, the rulers were making big claims of recovering missing persons, but they had become a partner in the kill and dump incidents. High Court Association President Malik Zahoor Shawani said it had become a known fact that in 95 percent cases of abduction of missing persons and their killing and dumping, the intelligence and agencies and paramilitary forces were involved.
He said earlier only human rights organisations and family members of the missing persons accused these secret agencies and forces of their involvement in human rights violation, but it had now come on the record of the court.
Senior lawyer Jahanzaib Jadoon said he thought a single mind was behind the targeted killings of the innocent people, whether it be on sectarian or ethnic basis.
Senior Journalist Anwar Sajidi regretted that the same brutal method was being used against the Baloch people which Israel practiced against Palestinians, Iraq and Syria with Kurds.