The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) completed the 4347th day of its historical protest in front of the Quetta Press Club on Wednesday. Prominent social leaders including Allah Dad Baloch, Ghulam Muhammad Baloch and Sultan Kakar visited the protest camp to express solidarity with the families of the victims.
Addressing the gathering, Mama Qadeer Baloch, the Vice-Chairman of VBMP, said that the federal government of Pakistan has been frequently wavering in between various stances on the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. He said that more than 50 thousand individuals are missing in Balochistan, and many of them have not been heard of for decades. He said that thousands of these “missing” individuals are suffering in the confinement of Pakistani forces – but the rulers of this country refuse to acknowledge this fact with utmost “criminality.”
He said that Balochistan has been converted into a military cantonment where all the major decisions are taken by the security forces and the Pakistani army. He said that the security forces have been involved in flagrant violations in Balochistan with no repercussions – anyone who dares to raise voice is “made an example of.” He said that the international community’s reaction to the ongoing humanitarian crisis has been solely academic – there have been reports and estimations, but no practical strategy or mechanism to combat the violent practices of the Pakistani state. The situation in Balochistan needs to be closely monitored, or else there will be no justice for the families of the Baloch missing persons.
Mama Qadeer resented that the figures of the Baloch missing persons released by rights organizations were wildly underestimated, and said the VBMP had rejected these figures. Activists, academics, student leaders and social workers are being “abducted” and killed en masse in Balochistan on daily basis. He said that the VBMP has lost faith in Pakistani politicians and parliamentarians as they have only made pompous promises and delivered no results. But the Baloch nation is now hoping that the United Nations will take notice of the issues plaguing Balochistan and liberate the Baloch nation from the chains of servitude, he concluded.
It should be noted that despite the almost twelve-year-long historical protest of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, “enforced disappearances” show no sign of slowing down. If anything, they have spiked in the recent few weeks. More than a dozen individuals have been “forcibly disappeared” by the Pakistani forces from different areas of Balochistan, like Zehri, Kalat and Kech.
In one grisly incident in district Kech on Tuesday, a young boy named Gohram, who was abducted by the Pakistani security forces along with three friends on June 12, was killed in custody. The details of the murder are not yet clear, but it is suspected that Gohram was beaten to death. The forces then called the family members and told to them take possession of boy’s dead body.