Baloch rights activists demand release of missing persons in Pakistan
Sep 04, 2022
Lahore [Pakistan], September 4 : Human rights activists and various student bodies in Pakistan staged a protest on Tuesday and demanded the immediate release of all the missing persons including Faheem Baloch.
On the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) organised a protest outside the press club, Dawn reported.
The protesters held placards bearing pictures of several missing persons, the places they disappeared from and the dates of their disappearance.
The demonstrators shouted the names of the missing persons whose photos were featured at the gathering and demanded their release.
Meanwhile, Qaiser Javed of the Progressive Students Collective spoke about the Missing Person Bill whose passage was impeded. He also mentioned the case of Faheem Baloch, a publisher recently picked up from Karachi, and how his whereabouts were so far unknown.
"If they're so afraid of literature and education then they can eliminate education from this country too," he said as quoted by Dawn.
According to Dawn, Faheem Habib Baloch was taken away by four unidentified men in civvies and some uniformed policemen.
His friends and other rights activists said that Faheem was sitting at his book shop, Ilm-u-Adab Publishers, on Friday evening when he was taken away.
Quoting witnesses, they said that the men in civvies politely asked Fahim whether he had sent books to Germany. They told him that their senior sitting in his vehicle parked outside wanted to meet him. They took him and since then, his whereabouts were unknown, reported Dawn.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) member, Parveen Naz said that Faheem was part of their rights body and had been publishing the Sada-i-Balochistan magazine.
According to several reports, innocent Baloch are killed in fake encounters and their mutilated bodies are found in remote places.
An annual report of the Human Rights Council of Balochistan, which is an organisation that documents human rights violations in the province, has said that students remain the main target of these kidnappings both in Balochistan as well as in other regions of Pakistan.
In July, Pakistani security forces forcibly abducted 45 persons including 10 students. Fifteen people were released later while the whereabouts of 35 people remain unknown.
July witnessed an increase in the cases of killings as compared to the previous months.
Human Rights Council of Balochistan documented 48 cases of killings, including five women while fourteen bodies remained unidentified.
