Karachi: Protests in Balochistan for the release of missing (disappeared) persons are not new. Neither is the state’s silence in response to these protests. So even though the sit-in at Quetta’s Red Zone (the area of Zarghoon Road where important government buildings are located) began on July 21 and has continued over the last 30 days, the protesters have heard nothing useful from the government.
But the sit-in will carry on, the protesters say. They have three demands. First, an inquiry into the Ziarat incident of July 16, in which 11 Baloch men were killed by security forces in a fake encounter. These 11 men had earlier been reported missing, said the protesters.
The second demand is an assurance from the state to the families of missing persons that no missing person will be killed in a fake encounter. And third, they demand that the families of missing persons are kept informed of the whereabouts and the health of the missing person.
Though the Balochistan government announced on July 28 that it would constitute a judicial committee to investigate the encounter, the protesters say they will not move until the two other demands are met.
Their demands reflect the reality of life in Balochistan, where people have been forcibly disappeared since the regime of General Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government in 1999.
Musharraf’s rule lasted till 2008, during which time people of all communities were disappeared if they were deemed a threat to the authority of the state. While the abductions in other parts of the country reduced to an extent after Musharraf’s regime ended, the people of Balochistan continued to suffer the same level of disappearances as they did in the early 2000s. And after a suicide bomb attack at the University of Karachi on April 26, 2022 by a Baloch activist, even more Balochs began to disappear.
“More than 55,000 Baloch have been abducted since Musharraf’s rule. It is a human rights disaster,” said advocate and activist Imran Baloch, who works on missing person cases.
Also Read: The Assault by Pakistan on Baloch People’s Rights Has Now Reached Women
Message in a coffin
At the Red Zone protest, activist Sammi Baloch, whose father has been missing for a decade, told The Wire that in her quest to learn her father’s whereabouts, she has witnessed much discriminatory behaviour at the Commission for Missing Persons and has been tortured for leading protests against disappeared persons.
During one of the protests she led, she walked 1,000 kilometres from Quetta to Islamabad along with human rights activist Mama Qadeer Baloch. But nothing she has done has so far has brought the people of her province the assurance they seek.
“We know how the state kills people in fake encounters,” Sammi said. “Earlier, the Counter-Terrorism Department of the police, which works under the military, killed people in fake encounters. Now, on July 16, 11 missing persons were martyred in a fake encounter even as their families were fighting for their return. Though 11 people were killed, the killings affected many more people. It was a message to the families of disappeared people that there could be a coffin somewhere containing the remains of their loved one.”
The fake encounter at Ziarat, Sammi said, was the state’s revenge for the death of Lt Col Laiq Baig Mirza, who had been killed by Baloch separatists. “When they could not take out the Baloch separatists, they killed missing persons instead,” Sammi alleged.
While there is no official acknowledgement of the protest, Sammi said that government representatives have been approaching the activists at the sit-in, promising that if the protest was ended, the government would be open to a dialogue.
“That is inadequate,” said Sammi. “We refuse to accept talks that will only be disappointing.”
Added Imran, “Parliamentarians and politicians should legislate the law and take firm actions in support of the protesters. But instead, they are performing the jobs of messengers.”
Sadia Baloch, an activist at the Red Zone sit-in, is disappointed with the residents of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan.
“We are in Shaal (the old name for Quetta), but are confined to a corner as though we are a minority,” she said. “Shaal is no longer a Baloch city. It has more migrants than Balochs. Even so, all the residents of the city should join our protest. Women and girls have been protesting here for more than 30 days. No political parties have come forward to support us.”
The protest is a peaceful one, added Sammi. “We are not demanding development projects. Nor are we holding the state hostage. We just want our family members back,” she said.
A young girl participating in the Red Zone protest in Quetta. Photo: By arrangement
Military matters
According to Nasrullah Baloch, the chairperson of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, the state does not take the issue of missing persons seriously. Even though the Commission for Missing Persons has the power of a magistrate, it does nothing to solve the cases of missing persons.
“If the state tries to silence Baloch voices by force and kill people in fake encounters, it will be a mistake,” said Nasrullah. “If this cold behaviour toward missing persons continues, the whole of Balochistan will protest. And while political parties are silent on the issue today, they will have to break their silence soon to survive in this political arena.”
Recently, interior minister Rana Sanaullah, a member of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party, said on television that if the families of missing persons provided evidence that these people had been disappeared, his government would look into the cases.
“If Rana Sanaullah is still willing to look into evidence, he should go to the Balochistan high court and the Supreme Court, which have had cases since 2000. That is enough proof to establish the fact of disappeared persons,” said Nasrullah. “A leader of Sanaullah’s own party, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, visited the Baloch Missing Persons’ camp and asked the then prime minister, Imran Khan, to solve the issue. But Maryam Nawaz has not tweeted about the protest at Red Zone since it started.”
According to Imran, when a local advocate asked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif about the missing persons issue, Sharif said that he would speak about it to the people with power.
“It was not only Shehbaz Sharif who confessed to being helpless; so did former Prime Minister Imran Khan,” Imran told The Wire. “It is the military establishment that runs the state, even to the extent of deciding who will be the prime minister.”
He added, “For instance, on the Ziarat incident, the Balochistan government could have formed a fact-finding commission. Instead, chief minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo said that they would form a committee to erase allegations against the military establishment. That means that since the very first day, the government only wanted to support the institutions involved in the abductions.”
The protesters claim that Balochistan is fully controlled by the military. “From the chief minister to the clerks, everyone needs the approval of the establishment. The Balochistan government, no matter who is in power, says what it is told to say,” alleged Imran.
He continued: “There have been no independent elections in the province since the Musharraf era. The military establishment selects who will win and who will lose. You understand this when you hear the losing candidates say that they are not being allowed to win the election.”
The sound of silence
Seema Baloch, the sister of Shabir Baloch who was abducted more than four years ago, leads the sit-in clasping her eight-month-old daughter. Heavy rain and the lack of provisions for basic needs have made the infant ill.
“We will eat only one meal a day if that is all we have, but we will never end the protest,” said Seema. “If the government does not pay attention to our demands, we will go on a hunger strike.”
The Pakistani media, like the government and the politicians, pays no attention to the protest. But Sammi and the other Baloch activists constantly post updates on social media.
“The politicians and the media have been asked to remain silent on the sit-in at the Red Zone because the Baloch families here have asked the army chief to negotiate with them,” said Imran. “The demands made in this protest make the establishment afraid of exposure. Various institutions have already been exposed in the case of Zaheer Baloch, who disappeared on October 7, 2021, but dramatically reappeared on July 29, 2022, when the protest in the Red Zone began.”
Zaheer, when he returned to his family, claimed to have gone to Iran. But if he had indeed gone to Iran, it would have been a violation of the Illegal Immigration Act, said Imran.
“The institutions tried to invent a story, but it flopped. Now Zaheer’s family does not talk to anyone,” Imran claimed.
Sammi is hurt by the silence surrounding the protest. “The state calls us anti-state, but has the state ever looked at its own actions?” she asked. “In this country, one province (Punjab) has all the rights and another province (Balochistan), in which people have to run around to seek their disappeared family members, is ignored.”
