PTM's Manzoor Pashteen joins protest for release of Baloch student
Mar 24, 2022
Balochistan [Pakistan], March 24 : Manzoor Pashteen, the chairman of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) has reportedly joined the ongoing protest for the release of Hafeez Baloch, a student of Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.
A large number of students have been seeking the release of fellow student Hafeez Baloch, who was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani intelligence agencies, reported Pakistan's vernacular media.
Along with Abdul Samad Khan, a member of the PTM Central Committee, the PTM chief extended support to the forcefully disappeared student front of Islamabad Press Club on March 19, as per the media report.
Over weeks, protests continue in Pakistan demanding the safe release of a research scholar and several others who have been subjected to enforced disappearances in the country.
This comes as rights groups continue to raise concerns about significant rights issues in Pakistan, including unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government and the forced disappearance of Pashtun, Sindhi, and Baloch human rights activists.
Taking to Twitter Munir Mengal, President of Baloch Voice Association said Pakistan is eliminating the Baloch intellectuals.
"Hafeez Baloch, a Mhil student of a University in Islamabad, is in final of MPhil Physics, was disappeared by force by Pakistani military forces from the classroom in Khuzdar while he was teaching students. Pakistan is eliminating the Baloch Intellectuals as they did with Bandla people," Munir Mengal, President of Baloch Voice Association said in a tweet.
In an earlier tweet, Mengal had said that alarming reports of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, from the Panjgur district in Balochistan.
"Panjgoor alarming reports of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, humiliation, looting of valuables and abuse of rights by Pak Army and FC personnel are coming amid search operations," he added.
Pakistan mocks the United Nations' concern over enforced disappearances, which continues to be practised with impunity in the country, according to a Canada-based think tank, which says that these practices remain a taint on Islamabad's human rights record.
The International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS) said that the rising media scrutiny, protests by human rights workers, and interventions by the judiciary have not been able to shake the conscience of Pakistan's government and its deep state on the issue of the enforced disappearance.
In a recent report titled "Living Ghosts," the human rights group Amnesty International documented the practice of enforced disappearances in Pakistan and urged Pakistani authorities to end its use as a tool of state policy.
