The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) completed 4353 days of protest in front of the Quetta Press Club on Wednesday. Social leaders Noor Muhammad Buzdar Baloch and Allah Dad Buzdar Baloch from Dera Ghazi Khan visited the camp to express solidarity with the families of the Baloch missing persons.
VBMP Vice-Chairman Mama Qadeer Baloch addressed the gathering, saying that when the battle breaks out between the “oppressor” and the “oppressed”, the innocent civilians bear the brunt of the conflict. The “oppressor” subjects these people to all sorts of atrocities, but such tactics often don’t produce the intended results. He said that the innocent Baloch civilians are being “forcibly disappeared” and then handed over to the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), which then systemically executes these missing persons and later claims that they were killed in a confrontation.
Mama Qadeer was referring to the harrowing incident in Marwar where the CTD had allegedly killed four Baloch missing persons in a fake encounter. The authorities say that the individuals in question were “militants” who were killed in a gun battle when the forces raided their hideout in the mountains. But analysts and rights groups say that these individuals were actually Baloch missing persons who were “forcibly disappeared” from different areas of Balochistan years ago. All the available evidence – like the point-blank shots in the heads of the victims, their dishevelled hair and ruffled beard, and their torn old clothes – supports the claim that the victims were actually missing persons.
Mama Qadeer further said that “bloodthirsty” forces have no qualms about innocent civilians. In their motive to eliminate the “oppressed” nation, these forces don’t hesitate to employ mass murder. He said that in the past 70 years, the Pakistani forces have been killing Baloch mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and even the elderly.
He said that if we remain silent about this, none of us will survive to tell the tale.