Missing persons: Four more bodies found in Balochistan

Police initiates investigation of deaths but no details have been received on the killings so far.

QUETTA: More mutilated bodies of missing persons were found on Thursday, bringing the body count in Balochistan to eight in two days.

Four bullet-riddled bodies were found in Turbat, Pasni and Khuzdar areas of Balochistan. Two of the men were identified as students while the other two were activists of the Baloch Student Organisation (BSO-Azad).

Since June 2010, 230 bodies have been found in Balochistan and nationalist parties and families of missing persons suspect security agencies of involvement. Advocacy groups, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, have also blamed military intelligence agencies.

The bodies of students Ayam Umer and Guharam Khalid were recovered from separate gunny bags near Turbat Bazaar. “They had bullet wounds in their heads and chests. Their bodies bore multiple marks of torture,” a Balochistan Levies official told The Express Tribune. Both men, he said, were in their early 20s and had gone missing during Ramazan from Mand area of Kech district.

However, no cases were registered with the Turbat Police or the Levies by relatives looking for the men. However, bodies were handed over to the heirs for burial.

The body of BSO-Azad activist Abdul Samad Kurd was found in Khuzdar. Kurd was a resident of Hub. The other activist, whose body was found from the coastal town of Pasni, was identified as Zubair Zahid who had gone missing on October 5, 2010.

Meanwhile, a complete shutter-down strike was observed against the recovery of bullet-riddled bodies in Turbat, Mand, Pasni, Gwadar and adjoining townships. The strike call was given by BSO-Azad.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th,  2011.