KARACHI: A student from the University of Karachi recently went missing and his family has claimed that he was picked up by personnel of law enforcement agencies, according to reports.
According to the missing person’s sister Hameeda Baloch, Sagheer Baloch was a student in his second year of political sciences at the University of Karachi. On November 20, after taking an examination, he was sitting with his friends in the university cafeteria when a black Toyota Corolla and two motorcycles came to a stop near them and their passengers forcibly held and took Sagheer away with them. The captors also snatched Sagheer’s friends’ mobile phones from them.
Hameeda told media that Sagheer has been a student in Karachi for five years. Their family moved to Karachi several years ago from district Awaraan of Balochistan. She said that Sagheer had no associations with any political party.
Hameeda further revealed that the first time the family approached police to register a first information report (FIR) for kidnapping, the police misbehaved with them and turned them away. Subsequently, they went to the national commission for human rights and reported Sagheer as missing at which the commission telephoned and summoned the police and had them register a case against the culprits.
The constitutional body National Commission for Human Rights has received reports of 62 people’s disappearances, including that of Sagheer Baloch from Karachi and Raza Khan from Lahore.
A spokesperson of the commission told media that after receiving a complaint, a letter is drafted to the interior ministry and all other relevant authorities and a response is demanded of them which they have to submit within 10 days. If no reply is received from the authorities within the stipulated time, another letter is dispatched to them and they are asked to appear for a hearing.
A spokesperson of the University of Karachi has expressed his unfamiliarity regarding the incident while the university’s Vice-Chancellor Muhammad Ajmal Khan has been unavailable for comment despite many attempts to contact him through phone. The national commission for human rights has also demanded the vice-chancellor’s comments regarding the incident in writing.
Meanwhile, the commission has also announced to conduct a protest demonstration against Sagheer’s disappearance on December 16.
