Supreme Court of Pakistan accused security forces for abductions in Balochistan
Date 2012-07-12 | Topic: Quetta
| The top judge of Pakistan’s highest court on Wednesday accused the paramilitary Frontier Corps of involvement in the disappearance of a third of all the missing persons in Balochistan.
Pakistan's Supreme Court is investigating cases of missing people in Balochistan, where the military has retorted to brutal killings, bombardment of villages, abductions and other human rights violations in its bid to put down the Baloch peoples’ struggle for freedom.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, returned to Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to hear cases of the families of abducted Baloch and those who have been killed by Pakistani security forces under their on-going policy of ‘kill and dump’ across Balochistan.
The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, an organisation striving for the save recovery of abducted Baloch, says that over 14,000 Baloch activists hailing from different spheres of life have been abducted by Pakistan FC and intelligence agencies. They say that over 450 people from the aforementioned number of abducted Baloch have been killed under custody and their brutally tortured and bullet riddled bodies were found dumped across Balochistan.
VOA's Deewa Radio on Wednesday quoted Nasrullah Baloch, the chairman of VMBP as saying, “every day Frontier Corps and secret agencies kidnap political workers in broad daylight and keep them in their illegal torture cells, then we receive their bullet-riddled, mutilated dead bodies.”
"Enough evidences are available for involvement of the Frontier Corps in picking up of every third missing person" in Balochistan, Mr Chaudhry remarked during a hearing.
The court also heard a case involving the abduction of 30 Baloch men and killing of two members of BSO-Azad in the Totak village of Khuzdar district of Balochistan in February last year. The FC officials have been ordered to produce people from the Totak incident which it had in custody.
It is worth recalling that on 18 February 2011 the Pakistan FC and other security forces had attacked the Torak village near Khuzdar. Two members of BSO-Azad namely Naeem Qalandrani and Yahya Qalandarani were killed and arrested over two dozen members of Qalandarani Baloch tribe were abducted. The bullet ridden body of Maqsood Qalandrani was found dumped in Quetta on 16 July 2011. The rest of the people abducted in February last year are still being illegally held by Pakistani intelligence agencies.
Balochistan, which also straddles Iran and Afghanistan, is rich in in natural resources including Oil and Gas, but the Baloch people remains one of the most deprived in South East Asia. Rights activists have accused the military of mass arrests and extra-judicial executions in its bid to counter a national liberation struggle.
International Human Rights Organisations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Asian Human Rights Commission have extensively reported on Pakistani atrocities against Baloch people. These groups say that abductions are often carried out in broad day light in presence of multiple eye-witnesses – family members and fellow passengers.
In June this year the UN human rights Chief Navi Pillay voiced concern about "very grave" rights violations during Pakistani military operations. She had said disappearances in Balochistan had become "a focus for national debate, international attention and local despair"
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