Eid Day for the Relatives of Baloch Missing Persons

Eid is Mus­lims’ reli­gious fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate it hap­pi­ly and wish oth­ers hap­pi­ness and peace on this aus­pi­cious occa­sion. While the Mus­lim world and most of the Pak­ista­nis were rejoic­ing Eid day with their rel­a­tives, a num­ber of Baloch fam­i­lies includ­ing chil­dren, women, elder­ly and young gath­ered in Quet­ta to car­ry­out ral­lies against the enforced dis­ap­pear­ances of their loved ones.

Led by the Voice for Baloch Miss­ing Per­sons (VBMP), the pro­test­ers marched through dif­fer­ent roads of the city and lat­er staged a demon­stra­tion out­side the Quet­ta Press Club demand­ing the safe release of dis­ap­peared Baloch peo­ple.

It is worth men­tion­ing that for the past five years, the fam­i­lies of abduct­ed Balochs have been protest­ing every year on Eid days to express their con­cerns over abduc­tion and cus­to­di­al killings alleged­ly by the state secu­ri­ty forces and intel­li­gence agen­cies.

Accord­ing to Mama Qadeer Baloch, vice pres­i­dent of the Voice for Baloch Miss­ing Per­sons (VBMP), they protest to gain atten­tion of the world com­mu­ni­ty towards the trag­ic dete­ri­o­ra­tion of state of affairs in Balochis­tan.

Accord­ing VBMP, a human rights orga­ni­za­tion strug­gling for the safe release of Baloch miss­ing per­sons, the num­ber of miss­ing per­sons is more than 15,000. Also more than 1600 decom­posed and bul­let-rid­dled dead bod­ies of the miss­ing per­sons have been recov­ered in dif­fer­ent areas of Balochistn. The num­ber of recov­ered bod­ies from Tutak mass graves is aside from the above men­tioned fig­ure.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the Voice for Baloch Miss­ing Per­sons’ lead­er­ship pro­vid­ed the data of miss­ing per­sons to UN work­ing group that vis­it­ed Quet­ta in 2012. The same orga­ni­za­tion also held his­toric long march from Quet­ta to Islam­abad to high­light the predica­ment of this human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis. So far the five years long protest camp of VBMP for miss­ing Baloch has not been able to make state soft­en its poli­cies towards the abduc­tion, tor­ture and killing of Baloch peo­ple. They have been appeal­ing to the Unit­ed Nations, the Euro­pean Union, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions for tak­ing notice of the enforced dis­ap­pear­ances. VBMP is not sat­is­fied with the response of inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions.

Though the abduct-kill-dump pol­i­cy by the state was launched dur­ing Gen­er­al Per­vez Mushar­raf’s mil­i­tary regime, it is still con­tin­u­ing unabat­ed dur­ing the demo­c­ra­t­ic regimes. The provin­cial gov­ern­ment of Dr. Malik Baloch also seems strand­ed in this regard. Despite Dr Malik’s claims on the oppo­site, he and his rul­ing par­ty have not been able to change the mind­set of state pol­i­cy­mak­ers on the issue of Baloch geno­cide. It is high time for the respon­si­ble author­i­ties and cham­pi­ons of human rights to take seri­ous mea­sures for the safe release of Baloch polit­i­cal activists, teach­ers, doc­tors, and lawyers so that ways can be made for talks with the Baloch nation­al­ists.