By Hakeem Wadhela
Abductions are not a new norm or practice in Balochistan. People of Balochistan are facing this inhuman act of Pakistan’s state authorities for decades and every passing day brings more news of abductions and the production of mutilated dead bodies.
According to the Baloch Human Rights Organisation (BHRO) and International Human Rights organisations, thousands of Balochs have been abducted in past ten years by the Pakistani military and their subordinates from various parts of Balochistan, and many among them were brutally executed and their dead bodies were thrown in jungles, roadsides or in mountains. This includes children, elderly people and women as well.
Most of the people who went missing by the hands of Pakistani forces were Baloch youth belonging to the different walks of the life such as Students, Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Poets and Intellectuals. They became the victim of Pakistan’s well designed and systematically forced abduction due to their devoted support to the political and human rights of Baloch people. They fearlessly stood against the Pakistani oppressions in Balochistan and they raised their voices against the plunder of Baloch resources and the military operations across occupied Balochistan.
On 26th of December 2018, another shocking, suspicious and devastating news of abduction of a Baloch youth broke out. This news was more disturbing because this time the Baloch youth wasn’t abducted by the Pakistani forces and his location wasn’t Balochistan or any other part of Pakistan. He was abducted from Sharjah, UAE, by the United Arab Emirates secret services.
According to the eyewitnesses, Rashid Hussain was travelling along with his cousin when a car approached them and asked them to stop, they introduced themselves as members of UAE secret services, they were in plain clothes. They asked for the ID’s of everyone and after seeing Rashid Hussain’s ID they took him away with them.
This was shocking and surprising news for the whole Baloch nation that a Baloch human rights activist who fled from Pakistan to the UAE just to save his life from Pakistan’s oppression, become a victim of abduction in UAE. Baloch nation around the globe expressed their anger and concern against this unlawful abduction of Baloch youth and urged the UAE government to release Rashid Hussain on humanitarian grounds immediately.
Surprisingly, the UAE government didn’t respond to the concerns of the Baloch nation. But the Pakistani state, on the other hand, started a media trial of Rashid Hussain, they started portraying him as a militant and they falsely accused him one of the facilitators of the Chinese consulate attack. The baseless allegations, which Pakistani police put on Rashid Hussain are extremely dangerous.
According to the Pakistani forces media brief, Rashid Hussain was in Karachi when the attack on Chinese consulate in Karachi took place. They also claimed that an amount of 0.9 million was deposited to his bank accounts to distribute among the attackers. All these allegations of Pakistani police are fabricated and based on lies because Rashid Hussain is living in UAE for almost two years, there was no such transaction ever happened to his accounts. After these fake charges on Rashid Hussain Pakistani authorities have also said that they are in process of extradition of Rashid Hussain from UAE to Pakistan.
The Baloch nation living in the Middle East, especially in the UAE, Bahrain and Oman have strong historical and brotherly relations with their Arab neighbours. This historical relation of two nations must never break because of a newly formed state which has no historical background.
We, the Baloch nation, hope that the UAE won’t listen to that fake stories created by the Pakistani ISI against Rashid Hussain. We hope that the UAE government will respect the human rights of Rashid Hussain and will release him. This will send a message to the Baloch nation that, our historical relations can’t be damaged because of some bogus charges fabricated by a rogue state.