Voice for Baloch Missing Persons Report: Some of the souls in traumata, Others yet awaiting recognition

Background Balochistan, a sovereign state, was occupied by Pakistan on 27th of March 1948; since that day, in order to silence the voices for liberation and to instill fear among the general populace, Pakistan has employed a strategy of enforcedly disappearing people belonging to different age groups and occupations, of which only a small number has been documented in the list attached. The first people who were enforcedly disappeared were the friends and peers of Prince Abdul Karim, who were abducted in 1948, of which few were released and others are still missing, most probably murdered under custody.

In the rebellion which arose in the years of 1973-1977, which was countered by Pakistan with the help of Iran, several common Balochs were enforcedly disappeared. This was the first instance when Pakistan Army made public its vicious approach towards silencing the Baloch voices by abducting common Balochs; they sold the women as sex slaves in Lahore and among the commodities being sold in Lahore also included children of Balochistan, who could barely even realize that their smiles were being sold cause of the voices their people were raising against injustice. Many of them women were later on “bought back” by their families from Lahore.

Though the list includes abductees from as early as the year 2000, however only very known earlier cases have been included. Mainly the documentation was started in the year 2005, when the cases of the disappearances began to rapidly increase. The chart below, highlight yearly flow of the disappearances. Moreover this should be taken under consideration that the cases of torture murders have been gradually increasing with the passage of time.

The list enclosed includes only a limited number of the victims, as due to insufficient resources and lack of communication means most of the cases could not be included. Furthermore, several of the families of the victims do not bring the cases in public after being threatened by Pakistan army, for they think their loved ones would be murdered under custody if they disclose the cases in public.

The cases of enforced disappearances are not only limited to a particular gender or an age group. Among the victims include an infant as young as of just 1 month and an elderly man of 92 years of old.

By the time this list was prepared, about 14400 were enforcedly disappeared, of which only 22 people of the documented victims were released and 289 of them were murdered. Most of the victims are still missing and several of them possibly murdered.

Among the people disappeared, victims’ occupations have been diverse as well. The victims do not only include journalists, political workers, doctors and teachers but also people working as civil servants, students and house wives were not spared. Balochistan, which is already banned for the international journalists and aid workers, is as unsafe for the locals who dare to speak against injustices and is threatening even for those, who are friends or family of the people who dare to speak.

More recently, Pakistan has given pace to a torture murder strategy, also called as the kill and dump strategy among the human rights workers focused on Balochistan. In less than a year, more than 400 mutilated bodies of the enforcedly disappeared were dumped on busy streets and known places, with often chits in the pockets of the victims identifying them, when the bodies are tortured beyond recognition. The evident purpose of doing so is to instill fear among the general populace, to threaten of such deaths if they continued speaking against the atrocities being committed in Balochistan.

Voice for Baloch Missing and Murdered, with the documented details of the victims, hereby appeals to the international organizations to take immediate measures to stop the human rights abuses in Balochistan. If timely measures are not taken, massacres committed by Nazis in Germany and by Pakistan in Bangladesh could yet again take place, and become a black spot on humanity itself. Immediate intervention, by sending fact finding missions to Balochistan, can not only safe hundreds and thousands of innocent lives, but would save humanity itself.
 

Appeal

Balochistan has been facing grave human rights violations since the day it was occupied, on 27th of March, 1948. Among the frequent measures employed by Pakistan Army to suppress the voices in Balochistan include enforced disappearances, target killings, custodial killings, public beatings, harassment, burning alive cattle and crops and poisoning water streams and wells. Since Pakistan’s occupation of Balochistan, several thousand innocent men, women and children have lost their lives and several others have been physically disabled.

These violations are getting grave by each day, and a systematic slow genocide is taking place. The silence of the International community on the issue is serving as a silent supporter of these human rights abuses, and if such silent support persists, this world would witness a catastrophe in terms of human values and virtues.

Voice for Baloch Missing and Murdered Persons has documented the information of 2251 Balochs who have been enforcedly disappeared mainly within the last seven years and the information of 289 Balochs who have been murdered under the custody of Pakistan Army in the last 3 years. However the anticipated number of the enforcedly disappeared crosses 14,400 and victims of custodial killings cross the number of 400.

These figures should alarm the International community of the capability of Pakistan Army to commit such heinous crimes. And on the behalf of Baloch people, the victims of such brutalities, we appeal to the International Community to send a fact finding mission to Balochistan and investigate by itself the gross human violations taking place in the region.

It is only then, that the International Community would become aware of the seriousness of this issue, and would be able to take immediate steps to restate humanity in this part of the world. We urge that if immediate measures are not taken, civilization would lose hopes in this region and inhumanity would eventually envelope the whole world.

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