Balochistan: Resident killed under Pakistan Army custody, claims Baloch activist

A prominent Baloch activist who runs a campaign against missing persons in Balochistan has claimed that a resident of the province has been killed under Pakistan Army custody.

Taking to Twitter, Mama Qadeer, the Vice Chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, shared the image of Wahid and said that his tortured and bullet-riddled body was brought by Army to Awaran Hospital on Thursday.

"Abdul Wahid, resident of Kolwah in Awaran, has been killed under Pak Army custody. Here in the 1st pic taken on 9 Oct 2021, he can be seen under detention of Army. His tortured & bullet riddled dead body was brought by Army to Awaran Hospital yesterday," Qadeer tweeted on Friday.

Earlier, on Thursday, Dr Naseer Dashti, Executive President of the Baloch Human Rights Council (BHRC) said since the occupation of Balochistan, by Pakistan in 1948, the history of the Baloch is a tale of "blood and tears". He made these remarks at the conference at the Press Club in Geneva.

Talking about the aspects of human rights violations in Balochistan, he said, "The one aspect is the genocidal act, which includes enforced disappearances, the phenomenon where the Pakistani military and its security agencies, they pick up human rights activists, political activists, doctors, Indian students, teachers, and they keep them incommunicado for years."

"The families are unaware about the whereabouts of their loved ones," he added. He stated that estimated 4,833 persons have been disappeared since 2006.

There is another aspect of human rights violation which is called the "kill and dump policy", he said.

"The Pakistani security agencies, with the help of their collaborative auxiliary organization.  They pick up people torture them, and throw their mutilated bodies in desolate areas. And this is a routine affair in Balochistan," Dashti said.

"Hundreds of students, teachers, political activists, social activists, journalists have been killed in such ways. And there is a phenomenon of mass graves, found in many locations and Balochistan since 2011," he added.

He said that there is another aspect of human rights violation which is the "conversion of secular Baloch society into a religious fundamentalist one".

"Thousands of religious schools are sponsored by the Pakistani military where the children are taught a very medieval version of religion and they are trained to become jihadis or to convert humanity into Islam, Dashti further said.

He continued saying that there is another aspect of human rights violation, which is "resource exploitation". Dashti highlighted that Balochistan is one of the richest regions and Pakistan and China are collaborating, extracting gold uranium, gas, oil etc.

Dashti said another aspect of human rights violation is "cultural genocide where alien language has been imposed in Balochistan".In all practical purposes, the Balochs are leaving under the shadow of the Pakistani military with its religious, fundamentalists, and human rights violations and genocide acts, he said.

"It's high time for the international community to raise voices against these brutal military machines of the region," Dashti added.

(ANI)