Political, religious groups narrate violent ordeal to UN mission

Several political and religious organizations on Sunday separately called on the UN working group analysing the missing persons issue and apprised its members about missing persons and sectarian killings across the country, especially in Balochistan.
Those who met the UN officials included Balochistan National Party-Mengal, Hazara Qaumi Jirga, Jamhoori Watan Party, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and the Shia Conference.
BNP-M’s acting president Dr Jahanzaib Jamaldini, Information Secretary Agha Hassan Baloch and Khurshid Jamaldini met the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances headed by Olivier de Frouville, which was on a two-day visit to provincial capital Quetta.
Talking to reporters later, Agha said they had presented a list of 62 leaders, including party general secretary Habib Jalib Baloch, who had been killed in targeted acts, and told the UN delegates that these leaders were killed per a conspiracy.
He said the number of missing persons in Balochistan was over 14,000, however, the party had prepared a list of 1,000 missing persons and had already dispatched it to the UN and other international humanitarian organizations.
The data included a list of 480 bullet riddled and decomposed bodies recovered from the streets and desolate places in parts of Balochistan. Agha said a severe violation of human rights was being committed in Balochistan, which had started in the dictatorial regime of Pervez Musharraf and still continued without a respite, adding that his party had urged upon the UN and other international human rights organizations for their intervention in ending the violation of human rights.
To a question, the BNP leader said the UN working group had met a large number of people and the body believed there was something wrong due to which the people were worried and making serious complaints. Jahmoori Watan Party chief Talal Akbar Bugti said after meeting the UN group that he had apprised the UN officials about extra judicial arrests, enforced disappearances, violation of human rights and recovery of mutilated dead bodies across Balochistan, adding that more than 13,000 people had gone missing in Balochistan.
He said he had also mentioned the ban on the entry of family members of slain Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in their own native town of Dera Bugti.
He said they had not pinned high expectations on the UN because it had always served the interests of world powers. Bugti said the UN had always deployed its peace keeping forces in areas of its own interests.
However, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leaders did not talk to the press. Party sources said that the delegation had apprised the UN working group about the targeted killings of Pashtoon and Punjabi speaking people at the hands of Baloch militant groups. It said Pashtoons had been subjected to excesses in all walks of life in Balochistan and they now wanted a separate province.
Sardar Saadat Hazara, who was heading his group’s delegation, told reporters that a three-member delegation representing the Hazara community had apprised the UN officials about the killing of their community members on the basis of sect and creed for the last many years in the province. He said the government was not playing its role in curbing such incidents. They urged the UN to exert pressure on the government to ensure the security of people belonging to the Hazara community.
Saadat said they had told the UN working group that had Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti not been killed in a military operation, the situation in Balochistan would not have deteriorated.