PAKISTAN: Two more disappeared persons are extrajudicially killed in Balochistan to destroy evidence of abduction by law enforcement agencies

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the bodies of two disappeared persons have been found in a remote area. The bodies bore bullet wounds and marks of torture. Both victims were abducted from Karachi, Sindh province at different times but their bodies were found together 500 kilometers near the Gwader district, Balochistan province. Both the bodies were lying side by side in an abandoned place. It was witnessed that both were abducted by persons in uniformed and in plain clothes that identified themselves to the onlookers as being from the state security agencies. 

Disappearances in Balochistan have become the routine work of the Frontier Corps (FC) and state intelligence agencies. Since last year the law enforcement authorities have introduced a new trend in which they kill the disappeared person extra judicially so as to destroy any possible evidence of their involvement. 

CASE NARRATIVE: 

On February 23, two bodies were found at Hadh Cross, Ormara town of Gwader district in an abandoned area. The bodies bore bullet and marks of torture. They were identified as Mr. Mehboob Wadhela and Mr. Arif Rehman who were missing after their abductions eleven and five months ago respectively from Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

Mr. Mahboob Ali Wadela was a senior member of the Baloch National Movement (BNM) which is part of the Baloch National Front (BNF), a nationalist movement struggling for greater autonomy of the province. He had been traveling in a passenger vehicle in Karachi bound for Gwader, a port city in Balochistan on 2 April for just a few minutes when it was stopped by uniformed police from Maripur station in Yousuf Goth. According to passengers on the bus two vans resembling army vehicles arrived at the scene almost immediately and plain-clothed persons emerged and began to check the identity cards of the passengers. When they came upon Mahboob they reportedly pulled him from the bus with his luggage and drove him away in one of the unmarked vehicles. The passenger vehicle was then prevented from leaving the area by police for some time.

The AHRC issued an Urgent Appeal on the illegal arrest and abduction of Mahbub (For further details, please see our previous appeal: AHRC-UAC-046-2011). The police refused to file an FIR (First Information Report) for his abduction on the excuse that he was arrested by the state intelligence agencies.

Another missing person was allegedly extra judicially killed and his bullet riddled body was found on 23 February, 2011 near Hadh Cross of Ormara of District Gwader.

Mr.Arif Rehman was abducted on September 3, 2010 from Ranchore Line Karachi while he was returning home after some medical checkups of his relative from a local Karachi hospital. During his abduction onlookers tried to resist the abductors who were in police uniforms and plainclothes. The people who attempted to help were threatened and told not to interfere. Rehman was an activist of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP). His family staged a long hunger strike for his safe recovery which lasted for 100 days.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: 

Since the year 2010, a new trend has been seen in the actions of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in which they have started to extrajudicially kill the disappeared persons so as to ensure that there was no evidence linking the abductions to them. Since the beginning of 2010 to date more than 100 persons have been were killed extra judicially.

Many people have died at the hands of the security forces in extrajudicial executions and deaths in custody, and thousands of people are reported to have been subjected to enforced disappearance. The confrontation between Baloch nationalists and the state is characterised by human rights abuses. The following cases are but a few of those recorded:

On 11 July, Maula Baksh Dashti, a key figure in the Balochistan National Party and a former district Nazim (Chief Official) of Kech (Turbat) District was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in his native district.

On 14 July, former Senator Habib Jalib Baloch, Secretary General of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) was assassinated in the Parkaniabad area of Quetta, by three gunmen on a motorbike. He received seven bullets in the neck and chest and had been receiving threats.

On 20 July, a leading member of the BNP-M, Liaqat Mengal, was shot dead on by three gunmen on a motorbike near his house in the Kalat district of Balochistan.

On 26 July, the bullet riddled bodies of two cousins, student Ashfaq Ahmed Mullahzai and Muhmmad Farooq Mengal, were recovered in Quetta, in the Kili Qambrani area. Their relatives claim they had been abducted in May 2010.

On 6 September, the body of Baloch lawyer Zaman Marri was found in Mastung. He had received a single bullet to his forehead and his body showed torture marks. The lawyer was reportedly abducted by intelligence agents near his place of work in Quetta on 18 August.

On 23 September, the bullet riddled body of missing Baloch lawyer Ali Sher Kurd was found in Khuzdar district. Kurd was reportedly abducted by Pakistani intelligent agents three days before. His neck was broken and he showed marks of torture.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Balochistan has a history of insurgency with local groups advocating greater autonomy. Four waves of violent unrest took place in 1948, 1958-59, 1962-63 and 1973-77.

Local people in Balochistan are demanding a bigger share of the revenue generated by the province’s natural resources, principally natural gas, which they believe now disproportionately benefit other provinces.

Cases of abduction and killing of children by the law enforcement agencies were also reported in the media. On October 18 a young man, Master Abdul Majeed, aged 14, son of Haji Mohammad Ramzan Zehri, a well known trader, was abducted, allegedly by the Frontier Corps, as claimed by his family, and on 24 October his body was found in Koshak river at Khuzdar district. There were bullet wounds on his head and chest. He was an activist of the Baloch Student Organisation Azad and was a student in class eight.

Another student, Master Mohammad Khan Zohaib, aged 14, also an activist of Baloch Student Organisation Azad, was abducted in July by plain cloth persons riding in a black coloured Sarf pickup, which is generally used for abduction by the state intelligence agencies. His bullet riddled body was found In Khuzdar, Balochistan province, on 20 October. His family members claim that he was arrested by the personnel from Frontier Corp (FC) for having links with militants who are fighting for the greater autonomy of the province.

Mr. Zaman Marri, aged 38, a lawyer by profession, was abducted on 19 August 2010 near his law office on Jinnah Road, Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, while he was on his way home to Killi Kamaloo, in the outskirts of Quetta.

On 11 September, Alliya Marri’s mutilated body was found in the same area where Zaman Marri’s body had been found. According to his family Alliya Marri’s body was mutilated and he had been brutally tortured. Nobody would have been able to recognise him if his Pakistani official captors had not put a letter in his pocket with his name written on it. The eye-witnesses said that the cause of death could well have been the result of brutal torture and it is suspected that the single shot to his head was post mortem.

SUGGESTED ACTION: 
Please write to the authorities to conduct inquiries into the incidents of extra judicial killings of disappeared persons who were allegedly abducted by the law enforcement agencies and prosecute those who are responsible. The FC and other Para-Military forces should be withdrawn from the province of Balochistan and release all disappeared persons.

Please note that the AHRC has writen a separate letter to UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Execution calling for their intervention into this case.

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