Lawlessness in Balochistan: Supreme Court summons chief secretary, police chief
The Supreme Court issued notices to the Balochistan chief secretary and inspector general of police to brief the court on Tuesday on the steps being taken to track down missing persons and curb target killings in the province.
A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry instructed the Additional Advocate General Balochistan Azam Khattak to visit the strike camp set up by the relatives of missing persons outside the National Press Club Islamabad.
During the hearing of the missing persons case on March 29, Khattak was directed by the apex court to submit a comprehensive report on the dead bodies recently found in the province.
The report submitted in the apex court by the Balochistan police chief revealed that 141 people’s dead bodies were found lying in the streets in cities across Balochistan during the last two years.
The court had asked the police chief to identify how many of these dead bodies were those of missing persons and to report the investigations undertaken to ascertain their identity and circumstances leading to their murder. The report also contains details of the cases of 36 persons abducted from Balochistan.
The chief justice said that the lives and properties of the residents are at stake in Balochistan. The rule of law should prevail in the country. Justice Sair Ali and Justice Ghulam Rabbani were the other members of the bench.
“Following the orders of the apex court, I met with Baloch protesters in the strike camp,” Khattak told The Express Tribune, after the hearing. He said he had shared the police report with them.
Nasrullah Baloch, the head of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), an advocacy group, contradicted the report’s findings and said that 1,300 people have been abducted since 2000 while 300 were picked up in the last two years. “The commission is powerless. It would not dare to probe the chiefs of the secret agencies,” Nasrullah Baloch said. Relatives of missing persons had voiced their concern before the commission.
Baloch said that the majority of the people were abducted during the military operations in Kohlu and Dera Bugti, including 149 children and 147 women. The protesters told Khattak they were facing threats from officials of intelligence agencies.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 12th, 2011.
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