The acknowledgement of involvement of security agencies in the abduction of Balochs is a very small step from the Pakistan government. But it may be too little, too late.
Ever since the Partition of British India in 1947, the minorities have continued to suffer in Pakistan. The predicament of Hindus has been worse in the country. Facing all kinds of ordeals in Pakistan, they have continued to cross over to India and seek Indian citizenship.
There is a place where as you go to school, to work or to run errands, you can disappear forever, without anyone ever learning what happened--even if you are elderly, just a teenager or child, or a woman. Someday, maybe, but maybe not, you will be found among the branches of the trees or in a canal.
The establishment, if it goes ahead with its plan, which in all probability it will, will be committing a barbarity of unparalleled magnitude
A credible Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper, Express, has reported that the government is considering granting amnesty to all personnel of the security forces and intelligence agencies who have been involved in enforced disappearances, torture and killings. As a quid pro quo, these officials would assist in recovering the missing persons.
The Ziarat Residency attack is perhaps a watershed event in the Baloch nationalist-Pakistan relations but it is not exactly a 9/11 equivalent as claimed by some
The city of Quetta observed a day of mourning on Sunday against the killing of more than 24 people in Saturday’s coordinated attacks on a university bus and the Bolan Medical College Hospital. When a political party within the ruling coalition, such as the Pashtunkhawa Milli Awami Party, calls for a strike, it implicitly shows the government’s helplessness to grapple with hard challenges.
In a recent interview with the B.B.C. Urdu, veteran Baloch nationalist leader Senator Hasil Khan Bizenjo rightly compared Pakistan’s ‘kill and dump’ operations in Balochistan with America’s drone-strikes taking place in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He told a Pakistani audience that if drones, as argued by the government authorities, were “counterproductive” in the war on terror and causing more militants then the bullet-riddled dead bodies of the missing Baloch political activists were doing exactly the same job in Balochistan.
KARACHI: Haji Abdul Razzaq Baloch, 42, made sure he attended every protest held for the people who went missing in Balochistan. “These are our brothers who have gone missing. Some day when I would be gone, you would have to do the same,” the tall man with a bushy moustache would say.
In short, it is in the transatlantic interest to support Balochistan's cause and, in doing so, limit Iran, Pakistan, and China's influence in South West and Central Asia.