Family members of two men allegedly subjected to enforced disappearance in Mastung have appealed for their safe release, saying they are under severe psychological stress and have received no information about their whereabouts.
Speaking at the protest camp of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) in Quetta, which continued on Friday for the 6,038th consecutive day, the sister of Fareed Ahmed Kurd said enforced disappearances across Balochistan had left families in “indescribable pain and anguish”.
She said her brother, Fareed Ahmed, was taken into custody on 2 December at around 10:30 a.m. from the Kolpur Bypass in Mastung district, where he was working at his hotel. Twenty-four days have now passed, she said, yet the family “still does not know where he has been taken or on what charges”.
According to the family, between 20 and 25 others were also detained by Pakistani forces on the same day but were later released. “Only Fareed has not been returned,” she said, adding that officials had repeatedly reassured them he would be released “today or tomorrow”, but no progress had been made.
The family said Fareed, son of Muhammad Rafiq Kurd, is a businessman constructing his own hotel in Mastung and “has no affiliation with any political party”.
Relatives also alleged that another member of their extended family, Muhammad Nadeem Kurd, a polio worker with the Health Department, was detained during a vaccination campaign and moved to an undisclosed location. They said he, too, remains missing.
“No institution is willing to register an FIR or even listen to us,” Fareed’s sister said, describing what she called severe psychological pressure on families living with long-term disappearances.
VBMP representatives said families of missing persons continue to participate in the sit-in, demanding that the state disclose the whereabouts of the forcibly disappeared or present them before a court if there are any charges. They said the organization’s protest would continue “peacefully but on a permanent basis” until all missing persons are recovered.