The PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday visited the sit-in protest staged by the families of the Baloch missing persons on D-Chowk in Islamabad. She urged the government and the agencies to assuage the grievances of the protestors and at least inform them if their loved ones are alive or dead.
According to the details, Maryam Nawaz visited the VBMP protestors who staged an indefinite sit-in protest on D-Chowk in Islamabad. Addressing the gathering, she bashed the government for not approaching the protestors. She said that if the missing persons are in any way culpable, produce them before the court, and if they are dead, just inform their family members.
“If you cannot recover their loved ones, at least you can tell them about those who are in torture cells,” she said. “They won’t do anything, they will just cry and fall silent but at least the agony that they experience every day will end.”
Addressing Prime Minister Imran Khan, she said that the PM house is not far from D-Chowk – it is hardly five minutes away. You don’t have to answer the agencies, you have to answer God. “If you can’t do anything for them, you have no control, at least you can pat their heads. Or do you only have things like ‘I won’t be blackmailed by dead bodies’ to say?”
When asked why her party, the PML-N, did not take any serious steps to resolve the issue of missing persons, Maryam said that: “All I can do right now is express solidarity […] I can let them know that they are from Balochistan but they are not alone.”
The Baloch Solidarity Committee also held a demonstration in Karachi to express solidarity with the VBMP protestors in Islamabad. Families of the Baloch missing persons, including the spouse of missing Shabeer Baloch, the family of the missing Rashid Hussain and daughter of the missing Dr. Deen Mohd Baloch were the prominent voices in the demonstration.
The demonstration culminated with a hunger strike camp where the participants condemned the government’s conduct towards the protesting families of the Baloch missing persons in Islamabad, saying that it runs in contradiction with the principles of democracy.
The speakers said that instead of patting the “helpless, elderly Baloch mothers”, the authorities are falsely accusing them. These family members have been protesting for years – they deserve to know whether their loved ones are alive or dead. They further said that the government should be ashamed of the status quo in Balochistan.
The Baloch Solidarity Committee also announced in a media statement that it will carry out a demonstration in Quetta on Thursday against the government’s “prejudicial” attitude towards the protestors in Islamabad. The spokesperson said that the families of the Baloch missing persons are weathering in the frosty nights of Islamabad, and yet they are being consistently “harassed” by the authorities.
The statement further added that the Baloch protestors are exercising their democratic right by organizing a non-violent protest – their “harassment” at the hands of the authorities is not acceptable.