Balochistan is a forcefully annexed and occupied territory of Pakistan. It has been occupied on 27 march 1948 by Pakistan. Since then its people have struggled to recover their land and rights from the invaders.
Pakistan has continued its suppression and cruelty on Balochistan for 75 years.
Geographically Balochistan is a southwestern province of Pakistan bordering with Afghanistan and Iran. It is the home of Gwadar port on which there is a project worth 67$ billion and which is central to China and its business. It represents 44% of Pakistan surface. Balochistan is the most undeveloped and deprived province of Pakistan but it is very rich having the world 5th largest gold and copper resources in the world.
The most serious problem being faced by the people of Balochistan is the brutality of the Pakistani military. Enforced disappearances and *fake encounters of Baloch people are at the peak in occupied Balochistan on the hand of the Pakistani military. Let’s give a glance on the VBMP (Voice for Baloch Missing Person), which was founded on 27 October of 2009 by Mamma Qadeer Baloch and Nasrullah Baloch. VBMP is a non governmental human rights organization which aims to organize protests, rallies and hunger strikes and facilitates the submission of first information reports to Pakistani police stations and courts. It alleges that people are disappeared because of Pakistani securities agencies, including the Pakistani army, the border corps and its various intelligence agencies, including Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.
Nasrullah Baloch is the Chairman of VBMP; his uncle Ali Asghar Bangulzai was abducted by the Pakistani military on 2000 and his whereabouts is unknown. Mamma Qadeer Baloch is the voice chairperson of VBMP; her son Jalil Reki was abducted in 2009 by the Pakistani military and his mutilated body was found on the street. Sammi Deen Baloch is the general secretary of VBMP; her father doctor Deen Mohammad Baloch was abducted by the Pakistani military on 28 June of 2009 and until now his whereabouts is unknown.
Starting from 2000, thousands of political and human rights activists, poets, writers and students have been abducted by the Pakistani security forces. On June 2009 the Pakistani military abducted Zakir Majeed who was the leader of Baloch Student Organizations. Thousands of Baloch have been abducted and killed in fake encounters. Thousands of homes have been burnt by the Pakistani military and thousands of people have been made homeless. Enforced disappearances began many years ago in occupied Balochistan by the hand of the Pakistani military. Thanks to a persistent campaign run by the family members of these missing people and some human right groups, a commission was established in March 2011 by the Pakistani government to solve the missing people issue. Unfortunately the commission failed to save the missing people from the torture cells of the Pakistani officials.
According to the Voice of Balochistan Missing Person report, 53000 Baloch have been abducted by the Pakistani military in the last 2 decades. Each home of Balochistan is infected by the Pakistani military on the abduction of Baloch people. In this year hundreds of Baloch students were abducted from different educational institutions of Pakistan by the Pakistani military and their secret agencies. Since PPP (Pakistan People Party) came to power in 2008, all the Prime Ministers have talked about the missing people. All of them have vowed to solve the issue but there has been no progress until now. They discuss over the issue and vowed to solve it. But after coming to power, they either forget it or just pay lip service.
The missing people may be dead, their mutilated bodies dumped into a ditch. They may be subjected to torture or maltreatment in the hands of ruthless interrogators.
Over the past decades it has traced hundreds of missing people to various detention facilities, at times years after they were reported missing.
The culture of this impunity is further expanded due to the censorship of the Pakistani medias and the threats that come if you speak about your rights and about enforced disappearances. Thus means lawyers, politicians, activists and journalists become fearful of being abducted themselves with these enforced disappearances.
Families are broken up and sometimes outcasted from society, along with feelings of uncertainty and intense grief.
Furthermore families suffer economic, social and cultural challenges. Human rights defender organizations must make pressure on Pakistan to stop the human rights violation in Balochistan. The UN must send his team to investigate the enforced disappearances of Baloch in Pakistan.
Islam Murad Baloch
Islam Murad Baloch is a political activist and asylum seeker in Netherland
*Fake encounters are claimed by activists in the turbulent Pakistani region as a way in which people are extrajudicially abducted by Pakistani intelligence agencies for their alleged links to militants – political activists, students and suspected militants. They are killed after a period of detention and torture in staged encounters most often claimed by counter-terrorist police, who declares them terrorists.
