(Daily Sangar)
On october 18, 2017 Wednesday at National press club washington DC BNM North America Secretary Genral Nabi Bakhsh Baloch briefing the press about the ongoing Human rights violation in Balochistan and sindh.
He Says BNM Demands Urgent Release of Punhal Sario from Unlawful Detention in Pakistan.Stop Enforced Disappearances of Baloch, Sindhi Activists by Pakistani Security Forces
Punhal Sario, Convenor, Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh, was abducted on August 3, 2017 from Hyderabad, Sindh by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) personnel and disappeared without a trace. His fate and whereabouts remain unknown. He is at grave risk of torture, ill-treatment, and even death.
On behalf of the people of Balochistan and my affiliated political organization, the Baloch National Movement (BNM) I would like to thank Sindhi Foundation for honouring me with this opportunity to add my voice to the call for immediate and safe of recovery of Punhal Sario from the torture chambers of Pakistani gestapo –the ISI.
We believe that forced disappearances and targeted killings of Sindhi nationalists is part of a larger scheme of the Pakistani state forces to erase all forms of political, cultural identities and voices that represent Sindh’s heritage, its people and the freedom movements that are a challenge to militarism and Islamic extremism.
In expressing solidarity with my Sindhi brethren, I would like to inform the media and rights groups in the West that people of Balochistan are suffering from the worst human rights violations in our entire history. Pakistan’s armed forces are on a genocidal military campaign in Balochistan backed by its strategic partner, China.Since 2003, more than 20,000 Baloch civilians, students, teachers, lawyers, doctors and women have been forced disappeared by the Pakistani intelligence agencies, and their death squads. A large number of the disappeared youth are constantly being dumped in the fields after brutal torture and in-custody executions.
Kill and Dump
On April 9, 2009, the mutilated, bullet-riddled body of Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, Chairman, Baloch National Movement was discovered at Murgab near Turbat, Balochistan. He was abducted in broad daylight from the office of his friend and lawyer, advocate Kachkol Ali who happened to be a Member of Parliament and the leader of the Opposition in Balochistan Assembly at the time. He was taken away by the ISI escorted by army vehicles along with two of his colleagues - Lala Munir, and Sher Mohammad Baloch of the Baloch Republican Party. All three were brutally tortured, executedand dumped at the same location five days later. That was the beginning of the so-called “kill & dump” policy in Balochistan initiated during the Presidency of Asif Ali Zardari.Since then, new dimensions of human rights violations have been introduced in Balochistan by the armed forces of Pakistan.
Mass Graves
In late January 2014, a shepherd had spotted a mass grave in district Khuzdar’s Totak area. Later discoveries revealed at least three mass graves with a body count of 17 confirmed by the government sources while Balochistan-based rights groups stated that the actual figure was much higher. Since the whole area was sealed off from public scrutiny and independent reporters, the truth will never be revealed and the debate on the actual numbers today ranges from 17 to 169. Following the discovery of Tutak, a number of mass graves have emerged in far off areas of Balochistan including Dera Bugti and the Padrak area of district Kech in Makran division.Nevertheless, this particular mass grave brought two facts into public notice:
State-sponsored Death Squads
The phenomenon of death squads is new to Balochistan and is actually an off-shoot of the Islamist jihadist culture stemming from the Pakistan Army’s military need to create non-state actors to do their dirty work. It is comprised of Islamic extremist elements, criminal elements and the drug mafia. The death squad members are mostly trained by ISI and the jihadist outfits such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Lashkar-e-Khorasan (the ISIS in Balochistan). The objective of the local networks of death squads is to abduct, torture, target-kill Baloch rights activists and create fear among the local populace.
Fake Encounters and Murders of Victims of Enforced Disappearances
In many of the recent military operations in Balochistan, Pakistan Army has adopted a new method of killing victims of forced disappearances and faking it as encounters with militants.Many such victims of fake encounters were actually forced disappeared persons whose names were traced from lists published months earlier by rights groups.
From a long list of enforced disappeared by Pakistan Army, I would like to bring to present here few names that have been highlighted in the past as well:
The patterns of state repression in Balochistan have evolved in the years during the successive Pakistani governments – from military to civilian – and the barbarism has grown from bad to worse, heading toward a policy of full-scale genocide and annihilation of the Baloch nation.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is now the key ingredient to the spread of human rights violations across Balochistan along the route of its construction sites leaving a trail of burned villages and destroyed homes in its wake. Baloch people are paying a heavy price for their freedom from the state of terrorism called Pakistan. And while the Baloch and Sindhis are being butchered by the Pakistan Army, the United Nation is not only silent but rubbing salt to our wounds by electing Pakistan as a member of the UN Human Rights Council.