Government accused of “cheating” missing persons’ families

By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA, Dec 2: Majority of the families of the ‘missing persons’ in different parts of Balochistan are discontented with the slow pace of government response to release their family members after the announcement of Balochistan package by Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani which led to the release of at least twenty disappeared people.

As promised by the prime minister, around twenty missing persons, including fifteen from the conflict-stricken district of Dera Bugti, have already resurfaced from different parts of Balochistan. They reached their homes to celebrate Eid but the release of only twenty people out of an estimated number of around four thousand missing Balochs is being viewed cynically.

“We are still unable to confirm who these fifteen missing Bugtis were because none of them includes a member of our party as our members were also picked up by the intelligence agencies. The families of these Bugtis had never raised the issue of their disappearances nor have they confirmed publicly about their arrest and release,” Professor Nahila Qadiri Baloch, a member of the Central Committee of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP), told Baloch Hal.

She said even though the release of twenty people did not please the Baloch families, it, however, exposed the “official lies” as it had been insisting in the past that no Balochs were in the custody of the intelligence agencies. “If one is to buy the older version of official truth then where did these missing persons come from? It clearly shows that the government agencies are keeping the political activists in their custody and they release them only when extraordinary pressure is exerted on them,” she added.

Terming the release of only a few missing persons as a ‘drama’, the Baloch leader pointed out that the cases of enforced disappearances continued in Balochistan even after the announcement of the recent Balochistan package. For example, she said, a nephew of Baloch nationalist leader Abudl Nabi Bangulzai had been whisked away by the intelligence agencies after the announcement of the package and his whereabouts are still unknown.

Dr. Dost Mohammad, Shaukat Langov, Saleem Langove and Organzaib are four persons who were freshly released by the government. Furthermore, a resident of Noshkai district, Mir Ahmed Bugti, who was picked up earlier in April this year, also reached home. However, all these people refused to disclose to the media how they were arrested and what questions they were asked during interrogation by their captors.

On the other hand, Nasrullah Baloch, chairman for a newly formed organization called Voice of Missing Baloch Persons, told the Baloch Hal that not a single missing person registered with them had been released yet. According to him, majority of the people who went back to their homes belonged to Langove tribe and their release came as a result of personal efforts made by a tribal influential leader, Mir Khalid Langove.

“The released Bugtis had in fact never gone missing,” he asserted, “they had been held in a private jail maintained by Mir Ali Bugti, the chief of Bugti tribe, and they were under the surveillance of the Frontier Corps. They had been brainwashed and offered to work for the intelligence agencies. Now, they are back in the custody of Mir Ali Bugti because they have been threatened by the supporters of Bramdagh Bugti to be killed if they operate for the intelligence agencies,” he disclosed.

Abdul Qadeer Baloch is among several parents who still await the recovery of their missing sons. His son Jalil Reki, 35, a retired banker, who served as the central secretary information of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) of Bramdagh Bugti, was whisked away on 13 February 2009 outside his residence in Quetta.

“Eyewitness accounts say around fifteen personnel of sensitive agencies dressed in civil clothes came in two vehicles and picked Jalil away,” said Qadeer, who is striving for the release of his son and other missing persons under the umbrella of a newly formed organization called Voice of Missing Baloch Persons (VMBP). “Jalil had told me that that he was being regularly followed by the personnel of the intelligence agencies and they would arrest him one day. I told him to be careful. I have moved from pillar to post to get locate him but with no breakthrough,” he added.

Another such father who awaits his son’s return is Dr. Abdul Wahab, a resident of Gulshan-e-Islam Sariab Road in Quetta. His 20-year old son, Abdul Hayee, who was doing a dispensers course at Civil Hospital Quetta, went missing on August 29, 2009. According to him, his son was returning home on a motorbike that displayed an official number plate when he was stopped and taken away by the security forces.

“We do not know under what crimes my son has been subjected to enforced disappearance. I want the government to at least tell me the charges under which my son is wanted. If there are any criminal charges against him then he should be produced before the court and tried,” said the sixty-year old father of Abdul Hayee.

Sajid Tareen, the vice president of Balochistan National Party, told this scribe that the number of missing persons was too high and the government was “cheating the people of Balochistan by only releasing twenty people. “The release of a handful of people is a joke with the people of Balochistan,” he said.