Rights body condemns killings of missing persons in fake encounters in Pakistan

Islamabad: A pro-Baloch rights committee has condemned the killing of missing persons reportedly in fake encounters in the Ziarat district of northern Balochistan.
Condemning the act, Baloch Yakjehti Committee-Karachi expressed its grief.

"Enforced disappearance is a crime in itself and putting a missing person to death by framing a false case as a terrorist is a crime as well as a gross violation of human rights that cannot be reprehensible," the committee tweeted in Urdu.

"Baloch Yakjehti Committee (Karachi) also supports the twitter campaign organized by BYC Shaal. We urge every individual to raise their voice against the fake encounter of Baloch Missing Persons. This tactic is a form of Baloch Genocide and we highly condemn it," the committee said on its Twitter handle.

Innocent Balochs are being killed in fake encounters and their mutilated bodies are found in remote places, according to several reports.
Recently, the nine persons who were killed in fake encounters in Ziarat were first forcefully made to disappear.

The media wing of the Pakistan Army a few days back stated that the country's army have killed five terrorists in a military operation.

"The sanitisation operation will continue in the area to apprehend the remaining perpetrators and recover the abductee," the ISPR said in the statement, reported Xinhua.

Prior to that, the Pakistani Army had killed four terrorists on June 25 during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in North Waziristan.

Enforced disappearances are used as a tool by Pakistani authorities to terrorize people who question the all-powerful army establishment of the country or seek individual or social rights. The report suggests that it is a crime that is often used by the authorities to get rid of people that are considered a "nuisance" without any arrest warrant, charge or prosecution.

The victims of these abductions, who are often youth, women, children, and elderly, are described by Amnesty International as people "who have literally disappeared." The organisation states that the authorities grab the victims from the streets or their homes and later refuse to say where they are.

The forceful abductions are being carried out in Balochistan since the early 2000s. Students are often the most targeted section of these abductions. The victims also include several political activists, journalists, teachers, doctors, poets, and lawyers.

The report added that tens of thousands of Baloch people have been kidnapped by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistan Army personnel in the last 20 years. Several victims have been killed and dumped and it is believed that many of them are still confined in the Pakistani torture cells.

The authorities, including law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system, have long failed to demonstrate the political will to end enforced disappearances, reported Hakkpan Balochistan.

Moreover, the bill to criminalize enforced disappearances had been strangulated in between ministries since 2019 when it was first drafted but recently introduced to National Assembly. (ANI)