Kabir Baloch, Mushtaq Baloch and Attaullah Baloch went missing from district Khuzdar of Pakistan-occupied Balochistan (POB) in March 2009. Twelve years later, their families still await for their arrival. And to mark the 12th year of the disappearance of Kabir, Mushtaq and Attaullah, their family members held a press conference at the Quetta Press Club and said that they have knocked on every door in search of justice in this long excruciating period, but to no avail.
Mama Qadeer Baloch, Vice-Chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), was also present at the conference. The family members said that the Pakistani commission on enforced disappearances is just a charade that has been established to mislead the international human rights groups.
Addressing the gathering, one of the speakers said that the past twelve years have been an agonizing period for her and her entire family. She said that members of her family have not just been “abducted”, but also killed. Her brother Waheed Baloch was shot dead along with his friend Salman Baloch in Khuzdar in the February of 2012. She said that her other brother Kabeer Baloch and two of his friends, Mushtaq Baloch and Attaullah Baloch, were “forcibly disappeared” from Khuzdar in March 2009, exactly twelve years ago.
The family members said that to mark the 12th year of the disappearance of their loved ones and to bring the matter of their abduction in front of the international rights organizations and judicial bodies, they will begin a hunger strike in the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons camp at Quetta.
They added that they will also organize a demonstration in front of the Quetta Press Club. They ran a social media campaign on March 27 with the hashtag #ReleaseBalochMissingPersons#. They appealed to the public to participate in the demonstration and raise their voice for the safe recovery of their loved ones and all the Baloch missing persons.
[…] It’s been twelve years since Baloch student leader Zakir Majeed Baloch was forcibly kidnapped and ‘disappeared’ by the Pakistani security forces. His crime? Well, Zakir Majeed Baloch was well read and had a thinking mind, which is a big crime in Pakistan-occupied Balochistan (POB). Any Baloch who talks about his rights is conveniently picked up by the Pakistani security forces or their proxies, who then joins the long list of ‘missing persons’. […]