December 11, 2024
By Shaukat Korai
KARACHI
Sammi Deen Baloch, the chairperson of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) along with the families of Baloch students held a press conference at the Karachi Press Club that another youth, Ismail, who had arrived in Karachi from Dubai a few days ago, is also missing. Sammi Din Baloch,), and leaders of the Baloch Solidarity Committee say that four Baloch students have been missing after being taken into custody from the Hassan Akwar area of Karachi on the night of Sunday and Monday. The four youths were students of Karachi University, including Doda Elahi, Meraj, Muzammil and Gumshad Ghani.
“These were all university students who were living in an apartment in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area,” said Sammi Deen. “In the middle of the night their rooms were raided by officials from intelligence agencies, and they were forcibly dragged away. At the exact same time, one their cousins, Ismail Baloch who was living in the opposite flat along with his mother and wife, and had reached Karachi from Oman that night was also forcibly disappeared.
Sammi said that there were men who were in plain clothes but also those who were dressed in police uniform. Despite the family pleading for an explanation, they took Ismail away.
“The issue of enforced disappearances is rampant in Balochistan anyway, but in Karachi once again, there is now a new wave of these abductions and disappearances,” she said.
Gumshad Ghani and Doda Elahi have been ‘picked up’ like this for the second time. the last time, they were taken was during a protest for missing persons outside the Karachi Press Club a few years ago. They were taken into custody, then released. But this time they have been forcibly disappeared.
Fawzia Baloch a member of the Baloch Yekjehti Committee said that Ismail was here from Oman on a short visit of two months.
“He was not even a student,” she said.
Sammi Deen says these abductions happened to pressurize them into being silenced so they could not speak against enforced disappearances. even those who came to attend the press conference at the Karachi Press Club, were harassed and threatened.
“A heavy deployment of police personnel is present outside the press club,” said Sammi Deen. “Our members and supporters were not being allowed to even enter the venue. You can just take a look and you will know that there is so much police and even people from the intelligence agencies hanging around outside.
In this context the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has condemned the harassment by the police and also on the imposition of Section 144 in Karachi specifically on December 10, the International Human Rights Day. HRCP also condemned the way the students were picked up and made to disappear.
“The State and government tarnish their image themselves,” said Qazi Khizer, the Vice President of the Sindh chapter for HRCP. “Instead of strengthening relations, they are picking up students, make them targets of violence, this is a clear violation of human rights, while gathering in ordr to carry out a peaceful protest is a basic right.”
He said that on Human Rights Day, Section 144 had cleverly been imposed on District south of Karachi, which also encompassed the Karachi Press Club. “This means no one can gather outside the Press Club. This act not only violates the people’s right to gather it also violates their right to protest,” said Khizer.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan believes that preventing people from protesting on the occasion of International Human Rights Day is a violation of the country’s constitution and law.