December 26, 2023
By Aitzaz Ibrahim
LAHORE
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) has categorically rejected the Ministry of Interior’s claim on Monday that around 290 Baloch protestors, arrested by the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) during a crackdown on the night of December 21, have been released.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry claimed that the decision to release protestors was made after negotiations between the protestors, who are currently camped outside the National Press Club in Islamabad, and a government-appointed committee constituted by caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar.
The statement further emphasized that “no one will be allowed to take the law into their own hands.”
وزیراعظم کی تشکیل کردہ کمیٹی کے مذاکرات اور عدالت کے فیصلے کی روشنی میں احتجاج کرنے والے تمام افراد رہا،پولیس تحویل اور جیل سے مجموعی طور پر 290 مظاہرین کو رہا کردیا گیا ہے، پرامن احتجاج ہر کسی کا حق ہے لیکن کسی کو قانون ہاتھ میں لینے کی اجازت نہیں،
— Ministry of Interior GoP (@MOIofficialGoP) December 25, 2023
However, according to numbers issued by the BYC, only 195 people have so far been released while 34 people have been sent to Adiala Jail on judicial remand and another 52 are being held in Attock Jail.
According to Dr. Mahrang Baloch, a missing persons activist and one of the leaders of the ongoing protest, some 100 people are still in state custody while the whereabouts of one protestor arrested during the December 21 crackdown, Dr. Zaheer Baloch, are unknown.
“There is no truth to the statement issued by the Interior Ministry. Dr. Zaheer Baloch, who is a PhD scholar, has not been presented in any court since the past four days. We are unable to trace him,” Baloch said. “Some 100 people have yet to be released and were not presented in court. We have lists of these people and our team of lawyers are working on [their release].”
Sammi Deen Baloch, General Secretary of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) and daughter of Dr. Deen Baloch who has been missing for the past 15 years, said that the demonstrators are being harassed and intimidated through other means.
“There was a strange incident last night (Monday) where three men stepped out of a Vigo and approach that part of the camp where the women and children were sleeping,” she told Voicepk.net. “They took our sound systems and, as they were leaving, drew their guns on some of our male comrades, threatened them and then fled in their car.”
She added that the entire incident occurred in the presence of the ICT Police, which stood by and watched.
“We cannot even wrap our hands around what these people want and what they are doing.”
The ongoing sit-in is part of a nearly month-long protest by Baloch families of missing persons and victims of extrajudicial killings, following the allegedly staged encounter killing of Balach Mola Baksh and three other youths by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Turbat on December 6.
Under the banner of the BYC (joined by other Baloch missing persons and nationalist forums), protesters launched a long march from Turbat to Quetta, and then to the Federal Capital, reaching the outskirts of Islamabad on December 21 where they were met with tear gas, water cannons and widespread detentions.Per initial reports, some 200 protestors, from the already ongoing token hunger strike camp outside the National Press Club as well as from the long march outside Chungi No. 6, were arrested.
In light of the crackdown, the BYC announced a sit-in outside the National Press Club, demanding the immediate release of all detained protestors within three days.