Another Baloch student has gone missing amid rising cases of enforced disappearances in Balochistan.
According to reports, Sayad Hasil, son of Mohammad Hasil, a student from Turbat, has gone missing while on his way to Karachi. Hasil was travelling from Quetta to Karachi on Thursday, where he had enrolled for a computer course. However, he was arrested and forcibly disappeared allegedly by the personnel of Pakistani intelligence agencies.
It was not clear why security forces took away Sayad Hasil, but notably enforced disappearances, a practice where people are allegedly held by secretive agencies incommunicado without trial for years, are rampant in Balochistan.
Earlier in the week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) had urged Pakistan to put an end to enforced disappearances. HRW had noted that Pakistani authorities, including law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system, have long failed to demonstrate the political will to end enforced disappearances in the country.
According to the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) a campaign group against enforced disappearances, the issue of missing persons in Balochistan is deteriorating every day. Families of missing persons, political activists and humanitarian organisations have accused Pakistani forces and intelligence agencies of the enforced disappearances in the region.
Peaceful protests have been going on for over a decade under the leadership of Mama Qadeer Baloch and Nasrullah Baloch of VBMP, for the recovery of missing persons.