Body to resolve Baloch students woes

IHC orders interior secretary to develop mechanism to address issue

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday ordered the formation of a commission to probe into the racial profiling, harassment and disappearance of Baloch students in the country.

Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani will be its convener, while the body’s other members include former senator Afrasiab Khattak, PTI leader Asad Umar, former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani, Senator Kamran Murtaza, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, former Balochistan chief secretary Nasir Khosa, former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Ali Ahmed Kurd, Pakistan Bar Council vice chairman, and the secretaries of the interior and human rights ministries.

The human rights secretary will issue a notification for the committee’s formation and also fix the date for its first meeting.

The court also directed the interior secretary to develop a mechanism to stop what was happening with Baloch students and ensure that their racial profiling was brought to an end.

The court also instructed the interior secretary to visit the rural areas from where the Baloch students had arrived so that their security reservations could be addressed.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah was hearing a petition filed by students of the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad through their lawyer, Imaan Zainab Hazir, against the harassment and enforced disappearance of their Baloch batch mates, especially the case of Hafiz Baloch.

During the proceedings, Hazir told the court that Bebgar Imdad, a student of National University of Modern Languages in Islamabad, was picked up from a Punjab University hostel on Wednesday.

She added that another student, Dr Dildar Baloch, was picked up from Karachi.

Also read: IHC directs President Alvi to meet Baloch students

The lawyer sought the court’s directives to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to issue notices to all universities so that Baloch students were not harassed.

“Apparently, the government is not taking the issue of the Baloch students seriously.”

The lawyer informed the IHC that President Arif Alvi had met the Baloch students twice on court orders and he had assured them that their issues would be resolved.

Justice Minallah noted that this was a real issue in the country, but governments and political leaders had ignored it.

The IHC chief justice asked as to who was responsible for the current dilemma.

Hazir told him that the chief executive and the relevant agencies were responsible.

The chief justice observed that if the racial profiling of Baloch students continued, then the government should shut down the human rights ministry. “Don’t say the state is weak.”

The IHC CJ observed that political parties' statements were different before they came to power but once in government, they forgot everything.

Deputy Attorney General Syed Mohammad Tayyab Shah requested the court for more time so he could ask the new government for instructions.

Justice Minallah told him to ask the federal government as to how could it ignore human rights violations.

“These students are the future. Should the courts close their eyes to these human rights violations?" he questioned. "Does the cabinet not know what is happening in the country?’

A written order by the court is expected later.