The Karachi police continue to loot innocent Baloch civilians on the pretext of “checking.” In such an incident on Thursday, the police stopped Haji Muhammad, a trader from Gwadar who had travelled to Karachi that day to attend to some business, in the Site B Area for “checking.” Before Muhammad could know, the police abstracted 30,000 rupees from his pocket.
Member of National Assembly Aslam Bhutani took notice of the issue to directed the authorities to investigate the looting incident. MNA Shakoor Shad, a member of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf from Lyari, said that the Baloch travel from Makran and various other regions of Balochistan to Karachi in search of better healthcare and other facilities of life. The Sindh police are not treating these people well.
It should be mentioned that this inappropriate behaviour is not a new development – the Baloch residents in Karachi have continued to face such injustices for years. The uneducated and poor Baloch citizens travel to Karachi in search of employment, but the police harass them at every opportunity they can find. They are treated as if they are “terrorists.” On the pretext of “checking”, the police loot these people from their precious possessions and their earnings. Anyone who rises against this “hooliganism” is beaten to exhaustion, falsely accused of substance addiction and drug trafficking and locked in jails indefinitely.
Due to the abysmal health infrastructure of Balochistan, the poor Baloch citizens gather all of their savings and travel to Karachi for better healthcare. They barely leave the street when the police show up to deprive of them their savings. The police also harass Baloch women by touching them inappropriately on the pretext of “checking.”
The people of Makran have raised the issue several times but to no avail.