Balochistan: Enforced-disappearances continue unabated in different regions

QUETTA: Pakistani security forces have intensified abductions of Baloch political activists and their family members including women and children as the next month general elections in Pakistan get closer.

On June, 30 the Pakistani forces carried out raids in Gebun Dal Bazar area in district Kech Balochistan and abducted at least two people.

The abducted men have been named as Shayhak son of Abdul Ghani and Allah Dad son of Haji Nasir.

On June 29 Balochistan media sources reported that a woman was found unconscious in a forest in Jhao, district Awaran. She recognised as Aamna daughter of Mahmoud. She was abducted on 28 June from the Sodd Atta Mohammad Bazar, a village in Jhao.

Earlier on 26, 27, and 28 June Pakistani FC and other security forces have abducted at least eight people including a woman from Balochistan’s Kech and Awaran districts.

According to details on 28 June, Pakistani forces abducted 20-year-old Bibi Aamna daughter of Mahmoud from Atta Mohammad Bazar of Sodd, Jhao, district Awaran. She is a resident of Sodd, a remote and rural village of Jhao.

Sources reported that she went to fetch water from the nearby river when the security forces abducted her. Mahmoud, Aamna’s father was abducted six months ago from Dost hotel in Hub-Chowki, district Hub. And her brother Khalid was abducted one week after their father’s abduction when forces raided their house.

Two days prior of Aamna’s abduction on June 26, abduction of three women, Bibi Saima, Gul Banu and her daughter Bibi Ganjal have also been reported from the same area, after one day of severe torture they were released in a critical condition.

June 27, forces abducted 60 years old Jan Mohammad Pendag from Bazdad district Awaran.

June 26, forces abducted Uzair Wahid Bakhsh, Badal Rafiq, Wasim Rafiq, Pirjan Bashir, Rahmat Ometan and Shabir Doshambey from Gebun, district Kech. All the abductees have been shifted to an unknown location and their whereabouts remain unknown to their families.

In another raid in Kech, Pakistani security forces ‘abducted’ a man from a house in Aashal, Kolwah. The detainee was identified as Azum s/o Dad Mahmmad.

The enforced-disappearances and abduction of Baloch women by Pakistan forces are currently among the most pressing issue in Balochistan.

Pro-freedom Baloch political activists on social media blame Pakistan army, FC and other security forces for abducting Baloch women, detaining them in military camps and even raping them.

Human Rights Organisation working for the safe release of Baloch enforced-disappeared persons in Balochistan put the number of disappeared Baloch 20,000 – 25,000 since the year 2000 when the current phase of Baloch liberation struggle started.