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From the Baloch nightmare to the British "Guantanamo"

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As told to Karlos Zurutuza and Wendy Johnson.
Photo by Karlos Zurutuza

"Did you know where Balochistan is the first day you came to this court?" I asked the jury. "Now you know where it is, and what's happening to our people there."

We don't record our birth dates, but my guess is that I was born in 1982. Our way to remember is to relate our birth with something relevant that happened at the time; it can be big floods, a war, drought, etc. In my school documents it was recorded as 1982. Because we had few opportunities in Kohak"”no school and no public transportation, only a mosque"”my mother decided to send me to Quetta, Balochistan. The living conditions of the family on this side of the border were relatively better. I was around ten when I moved to Quetta for primary education. I went to high school and studied pre-medical at Baluchistan Degree College in Quetta, as well.

My college was filled with Marri boys"”Baloch belonging to the Marri tribe"”who had left Pakistan in the 70s to seek refuge in Afghanistan when Bhutto began a military incursion in the Marri tribal area. Now they had returned from Afghanistan in the 1990s to live in an area called New Kahan, very close to Quetta city. Here they had no facilities at all"”no houses, schools, etc. I had myself experienced what these Baloch were going through. In the East we are discriminated against because of our ethnicity, but in West Balochistan there is also the religious factor because we're a religious minority"”Sunni Muslims, not Shia like the majority of Iranians. When I learned of the misery the Marris had suffered at the hand of Pakistan"”and even in Afghanistan they had been repressed"”I realised how difficult it had been for them and we became close friends.

Most of the Marris had no schooling certificates from Afghanistan, but local Baloch managed to get permission for older boys to enrol in Middle schools in Quetta. The younger boys and the girls, however, had nowhere to study. One of my uncles in Quetta was a friend of a local NGO called BLLF (Bonded Labour Liberation Front). He introduced the NGO to the New Kahan area and they were able to provide some school materials, but couldn't afford to pay for teachers. The teachers were all volunteers. I taught, as well, but not full-time because I was still a student myself.

I was in my second year of college when Musharraf took power in Pakistan. This was followed by an escalation of army oppression in Balochistan. In January 2000, Musharraf's army ravaged New Kahan in a joint military operation using paramilitary forces, police and Rangers. In one day alone 125 people were arrested; others disappeared forever. Following the operation I went to the area to see what had happened to teachers and friends. I remember I went in the morning"”a very cold and cloudy day. When I arrived, I found the area deserted. The tents were destroyed; the windows of the houses smashed"”as if a war had happened. All the men had been taken away. Only women, elderly men and children remained. At the damaged school I asked for my teacher friends. They had been arrested, as had many of the students. Almost three weeks had passed, but nobody had heard news of the arrested Marri men. Finally, after meeting with the remaining elderly people in the area, I decided to help. Along with two aged Marri men, I went to the police station to ask for information. But the police had no answers. They said they didn't know"”nobody knew where these people were being held and under what conditions. We eventually hired lawyers and petitioned the court about the arrests. I signed my name to this petition, along with two other Marri Baloch friends.

We first applied to a session court regarding the whereabouts of the Marri men. The Deputy Superintendent of Police, Criminal Investigation Department (DSP CID), Mr. Shahr Yar, the SHO (Station House Officer) of Shalkot police station, along with two other police officers, appeared in court to say they knew nothing about the Marri men. The lawyers then decided to approach the High Court. The court summoned the same police officers and instructed them and the ATF to either release the men or present them in court. The officers asked for three days to respond. Eventually the officers admitted that the Marri men were in their custody and had been arrested in connection with the murder of Justice Nawaz Marri who was killed in January 2000. They demanded more time to make a decision about filing charges and the court agreed, giving them another week or so.

During this period I managed to locate and visit most of the Marri detainees who were being held in City Police Station and Bijili Road Police Station. Some detainees we were unable to find. A friend who had connections with some police officials helped us; we also bribed a duty officer. One officer admitted privately that some Marris were in his police station, but that he couldn't allow us to meet them. He told us to return after 10 am the following morning as the officers would not be there. He would then allow us to see them.

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