Quetta/Karachi:
Arbitrary arrests and disappearances of Baloch students have spiked across Pakistan. At least four Baloch students have been reported abducted by Pakistani security personnel in Karachi and Quetta in the last two days.
According to information acquired by Balochistan Affairs, security officials arrested and took away Qambar Saleem and Irfan Abdul Rasheed, residents of Buleda, Turbat, Wednesday night around 1 a.m. in the Karachi’s Gulshan Iqbal area. Qambar Saleem attends the University of Karachi’s Department of Agriculture, whereas Irfan Abdul Rasheed attends the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Sciences, and Technology in Karachi.
In a similar reported case of enforced disappearances, last night, the Rangers and members of secretive agencies raided a house in the Kalhari Sargwat area of Lyari, Karachi, and abducted a 20-years-old student Waheed Ramzan from his home.
Another Baloch man, Gazzain Baloch S/O Muslim Allah Bakhsh, a resident of Turbat, was taken from his Quetta home at 1:20 a.m. on May 12, 2022. Gazzain has an M.Phil degree, according to his friends.
Friends and Families of the disappeared have identified Ranger, Frontier Corps along with unidentified plainclothes agents believed to be from the state secretive agencies, as carrying out arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearance including incommunicado detentions.
Baloch students across Pakistan are filled with anxiety and uncertainty as they worry about their safety in the wake of an increase in the number of Baloch students being forcibly disappeared.
The Baloch Human Rights Council (BHRC), a human rights advocacy organization, expressed concern about the rising number of cases of enforced disappearances victimizing Baloch students. According to the BHRC, Pakistani authorities have been abusing their authority and committing crimes against humanity by using enforced disappearance as part of a crackdown on Baloch dissidents demanding socio-economic and political rights. It urged the international community to impose targeted individual sanctions on individuals involved in these crimes in Balochistan.
“We will report the cases of enforced disappearance with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances during their 127th session”, said BHRC.
The international community should press the Pakistan military authorities to end the arbitrary arrests, allow independent monitors access to secret detention sites and release all the forcibly disappeared persons, reiterated BHRC.
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