Missing persons: Young journalist found dead in Khuzdar

Javed Naseer Rind was a senior sub editor at a local daily Tawar, a pro-nationalist newspaper.

QUETTA:

Javed Naseer Rind’s name was added to the list of more than 10 journalists whose bodies have been found tortured and dumped in Balochistan.

Said to be in his mid-twenties, Rind’s bullet-riddled body was found dumped in Khuzdar, about 300 kilometers south of Quetta, on Saturday morning. He was a senior sub editor at a local daily Tawar, a pro-nationalist newspaper.

“The victim was shot in the head and the bullet had passed through the skull. The body bore multiple marks of brutal torture,” doctors at the District Headquarters Hospital, Khuzdar said.

The Khuzdar police recovered Rind’s body near Ghazgi Chowk and shifted it to the hospital. The officers found a slip from the body in which the man was identified as Javed Naseer Rind.

Rind was abducted on September 10 near his residence in the Mehmoodabad area of Hub Town, which shares a border with Karachi. His relatives had filed an FIR about the kidnapping at the Hub police station, but did not accuse anyone for the incident.

The Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ) has condemned Rind’s kidnapping and murder and has demanded that the government constitute a high-level committee to probe the incident. “On several occasions journalists demanded Rind’s safe release but it fell on deaf ears,” a press release issued by the BUJ said.

It further said that over 10 journalists were killed in Balochistan this year and no investigations had been carried out.

Journalists had also raised the issue regarding Rind’s disappearance at the South Asia Free Media Association (Safma) conference in Islamabad last month, expressing fear that he would be found dead.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2011.