QUETTA/ KARACHI:
Another dubious saga has made the case of missing persons murkier than ever before.
The Karachi police claimed on Monday that they have arrested three members of the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) for supplying arms to the Peoples Aman Committee in Lyari.
Now, there is a debate as to who they actually are.
The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VFBMP) said on Tuesday that the men – Abdul Ghaffar, Shamsullah and Saifal Bugti – were listed missing after they were ‘picked up’ in January from Quetta. But the Karachi police dispute the claim saying that the ambiguity has been created by the similarity of names.
According to the VFBMP, three students were whisked away near the University of Balochistan in January. It said their names were on a new list of 60 missing persons submitted to the Supreme Court.
VFBMP’s Chairman Nasrullah Baloch thinks that the arrest of these people is a cover-up by the police who had been directed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to submit a progress report within two weeks.
However, CID SSP Chaudhry Aslam is adamant the men he has arrested are not the ones listed as missing. “I am not that stupid that I’ll claim to have arrested the men who are reported missing. Their names are not on the missing persons list. Rather, they are individuals with similar names and some quarters are trying to take advantage of that.”
According to the Anti-Extremist Cell (AEC) of the Crime Investigation Department, the men were arrested on a tip-off when they arrived in Karachi to deliver Russian-made rockets and other ammunition to the outlawed PAC.
Talking to The Express Tribune, the men in question admitted their alleged involvement. They said that they never studied at any university.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2012.
COMMENTS (10)
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hatred towards Balochs is ubiquitous in this god's very own country.why don't you nuke them out? solve the problem for once and all.
Its not rocket science to understand that its your ethnicity which is ensuring your freedom. Try being Bengali in late 60s / early 70s and being Baloch today!
As a citizen of this country I am sick and tired of the drama of the missing persons, it looks as if intelligence agencies have nothing else to do except kidnapping. Our biased media has never raised an issue about the people who are creating unrest and killing security personnel in the country. In the last few days quite a few security personnel’s have been beheaded. If it would have been Israel or USA they would have bombed and raised the area to ground. Where as in the guise of human rights we are not only being blackmailed by traitors but also the killers and criminals are taking undue advantage. Moreover when every one knows that India , USA and Afghanistan are backing insurgency than why media is not raising the issue and educating people to catch these traitors amongst them? As a matter of fact my faith and confidence in our intelligence agencies has increased. They are doing a marvelous job. While writing these comments I have just seen lawyers beating police in court. Can you beat a policeman in UK? Further I think, irrespective of the legal merits of the case the PITY THE NATION note of Justice Khosa -----is most appropriate. The note should be made a compulsory reading for all college students. .
Why dont sum one come to arrest me!!!!!! I go out, do my day to day work and no one pick me up coz I know that I m not involved in anti state activities. stop yelling about missing people, they can find them fighting along taliban in FATA against Pakistan army or kidnapping ordinary citizens like us for ransom.
Guys looking like they are in their mid-20s, early-30s dont look like "students" to me!
True. We shouldn't take these organisations at face value. While it's possible that their claims are true it's equally possible that they 'faked' their dissapearance.
by the way anyone knows who is supporting Voice for missing persons? foreign funding is behind them, they are funding them to bark against Pakistan Intelligence agencies and Pak Army...
These so called missing persons are in fact criminals who go under ground and start their anti state activities while their affiliated party and families make a claim that the person has gone missing. When ever arrested they come out with an excuse that his name was already amongst the list of missing people. This is a case in point.
Do these old men look like students to anyone? Stop trying to fool us liberals.