Condemning the murder of noted scholar and professor, Saba Dashtyari in Quetta, the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) has demanded an immediate formation of a high-powered inquiry commission to probe the killing.
According to a statement, PILER Executive Director Karamat Ali and Managing Board Secretary BM Kutty said that the inquiry commission should include retired judges of impeccable integrity with a mandate to go into all the gory details of the planning and execution of this dastardly murder and expose the culprits, irrespective of who they are and in whatever position they may be.
“Otherwise, the whole Pakistani nation will stand accused of the murder of Professor Dashtyari,” the PILER office-bearers said. They expressed profound sympathies with all the near and dear ones of the late professor and also affirmed their solidarity with the people of Balochistan as they are passing through a seemingly endless phase of denial, deprivation and neglect by the Pakistani state, with all its horrifying consequences for the future of the multinational federation of Pakistan.
“Coming so soon after the shocking incident of kidnapping, brutal torture and murder of senior journalist Saleem Shahzad, one is short of words to express the sense of outrage and horror at the assassination in Quetta of Prof Dashtyari,” they said. A man who rose from the slums of Karachi’s perennially unfortunate Lyari area to become one of the most outstanding and widely respected exponents of modern Balochi literature and a widely respected and popular academic, associated with the University of Balochistan for more than three decades, Prof Dashtyari was also a symbol of progressive, liberal political ideas and a man with a firm commitment to the cause of unfettered freedom of expression and social justice.
“By eliminating a man of Dashtyari’s intellectual and social stature, the assassins have in fact only served to further inflame the Baloch, particularly the politically-sensitised youth of Balochistan, and to further deepen their sense of alienation from Pakistan’s political and social mainstream,” the PILER leaders added. As an institution engaged in promoting the rights of the working class through education, training and research, PILER considers the dastardly murder of such a celebrated icon of education for all, especially for the marginalised and oppressed sections of society, as an attack on all the cherished values of a civilised society.
