Missing persons’ case: 13 years on, family of Quetta tailor await justice

VFBMP chairman says more than 400 activists have been picked up since 2012

QUETTA:

Even after a 13-year-long wait, the family of missing Ali Asghar Bangulzai is seeking justice in Balochistan as his 30-year-old son refreshed an appeal for the immediate release of his father on Saturday.

Bangulzai, a tailor by profession, went missing from Quetta on October 18, 2001. “My father was kidnapped along with his friend Mohammed Iqbal by personnel of the security agencies,” his son Farooq Bangulzai claimed during a news conference at Quetta Press Club on Saturday.

Farooq was accompanied by Chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VFBMP) Nasurallah Baloch. The VFBMP chairman said more than 400 Baloch political activists had been subjected to enforced disappearances in Balochistan since the National Party came into power in 2012.

Farooq said he was 17-years-old when his father was whisked away. “We have been peacefully protesting for the past 13 years but there has been no progress in the investigation,” he said. “We approached the Balochistan High Court and other human rights organizations in 2002. The case was taken up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2007. However, they did nothing to trace my father.”

Farooq added, “We want justice from the courts. My family is worried that my father is being tortured.” Nasurallah said the provincial government has failed to address the issue of missing persons.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2014.