Dead body of Pashtun leader Asad Khan Achakzai has been found five months after he went missing.
According to details, dead body of missing Pashtun leader Asad Khan Achakzai was found from Nohsar area of Balochistan on Saturday. Mr. Achakzai had been abducted five months ago from a heavily militarised zone in Quetta.
The police took custody of the dead body after its discovery on Saturday, and after investigation handed it over to the family of the deceased.
Asad Khan Achakzai was a politician and held the position of information secretary of Awami National Party (ANP) – Balochistan at the time of his disappearance.
Mr Achakzai’s party ANP had been campaigning for his release. The organisation had held protests and demonstrations in different cities of Balochistan on 22nd February for release of Asad Khan Achakzai and other missing persons.
ANP has vehemently condemned Mr Achakzai’s death and has demanded immediate investigations. The organisation’s President Asfand Yar Wali Khan in a statement said the state has failed to provide security to citizens.
“This is not the first time a citizen has been disappeared and later his body has been found. ANP not only condemns the incident but demands investigation into Asad Khan Achakzai’s disappearance and subsequent death. We want to know who are these powerful groups that can abduct citizens in broad daylight, the state fails to recover them, and then their dead bodies are thrown,” Asfand Yar Wali said.
The death of Asad Khan Achakzai was also condemned by prominent Pashtun leader of PTM Manzoor Pashteen. In a tweet Mr. Pashteen said: “Asad Khan Achakzai, who was abducted five months ago from securitized Quetta has been killed. Since long political Pashtuns are assassinated in such a way. We are with Asghar Khan & his political party in this unbearable grief.”
“Enforced disappearances” are a major human rights issue in Balochistan. Various independent sources have placed the figure of the missing persons in Balochistan in thousands. Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a rights group advocating for the safe recovery of Baloch missing persons, has been campaigning against enforced disappearances for more than a decade. The organisation claims that along with Baloch activists now the Pashtun leaders and activists are also becoming victims of the practice.