The Pakistani security forces have reportedly abducted a teacher and a social activist from Quetta and moved them to an unknown location.
One of the individuals, identified as Qadir Zehri, is a teacher and runs a school by the name of Model Public High School and a free tuition center in Tehsil Zehri, Khuzdar. According to sources, he was on his way to Manguchar, where he worked on a dam as an engineer, when he was “forcibly disappeared” by the Pakistani security forces on September 17. He was moved to an unknown location and his conditions remain unknown.
As per sources, Qadir Zehri had received threats from the security forces in the past and he was also summoned to the army cantonment in Khuzdar for questioning.
On the day of his disappearance, a large body of the security forces had surrounded his school in Zehri for several hours. The eyewitnesses reported that when asked, the forces said that they were “calibrating the GPS system.”
The other missing individual has been identified as Irfan Zehri, a social activist who ran a social welfare organization called Zehri Online. His group used to provide rations and medical treatment to the underprivileged people of Zehri who could not afford it on their own. Furthermore, he also sent tens of orphan students to cities like Islamabad for studies.
Irfan Zehri was reportedly “abducted” by the security forces from Quetta and moved to an undisclosed location. It is not known whether the two “abductions”, carried out one after the other, have anything in common.
Many argue that the security forces are cracking down on social and political activists, journalists and writers in Balochistan. The forces have “forcibly disappeared” and killed intellectuals and teachers in the past. Saba Dashtyari, a professor of great stature at the University of Balochistan and author of 24 books, was shot dead in Quetta in 2011, allegedly at the behest of Pakistani forces.
Professor Liaquat Sani, also a professor of Brahvi language in the same university, was abducted by the security forces along with two other colleagues from Mastung in December last year. He was released two days later under pressure from students and other teachers at the university.