Missing Persons in Balochistan
By Ali Sukhanver 
While talking about the human rights violations in Pakistan, the so-called human rights activists always forget the innocent Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns and even the Balochis whose brutal slaughtering at the hands of the separatists elements has become a routine matter in Baluchistan. It seems that whole of the western media is whole-heartedly standing with the so-called separatists who are simply making the life of the people of Baluchistan hell. Here is an extract from an article published on 26th April 2015 in the New York Times, two days after the brutal murder of a human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, ‘ On Friday April 24th, the city of Karachi lost one of its bravest daughters Sabeen Mahmud, a rights activist and the owner of The Second Floor (T2F) café. She was shot dead shortly after she hosted an event that sought to highlight grave human rights abuses widely attributed to the Pakistan Army and associated militia in the country’s largest province of Baluchistan.’ The Guardian said commenting on Sabeen Mahmud’s murder, ‘ The murder of Sabeen Mahmud sent shockwaves through Pakistan’s embattled intelligentsia both because she was much loved but also because the killing happened immediately after an event she organised with Mama Abdul Qadeer, an elderly Baloch activist campaigning on behalf of so-called “missing people” abducted by the state security apparatus.’ It is something unintelligible why the blame of abducting and shooting of innocent people is always put onto the security forces of Pakistan. As far as the murder of Sabeen Mahmud is concerned this lady had so many conflicts and differences with different people. She had so many opponents who disliked her for promotion of the Valentine’s Day celebrations in Pakistan. She was the owner of a café, T2F started in 2007. Since then this café was known as a Hide Park where one could talk liberally on the highly sensitive issues like religion, ethnicity, sexuality and the religious values.
Allegedly people knew her as a girl always going against the gentle wind of morality. Moreover after the brutal massacre of innocent children at the Army Public School in Peshawar by the terrorists, Sabeen was one of the most powerful voices who called for the arrest and imprisonment of a radical Maulana Abdul Aziz of the Lal Masjid Islamabad. While looking at the pros and cons behind Sabeen’s murder, we must not ignore the statement of Deputy Inspector General Karachi Jamil Ahmed. He said talking to the media, ‘An enemy country or its intelligence agency may have wished to give Karachi’s law-and-order situation a “complicated turn” by targeting someone like Sabeen’. In short the crux of the matter is that linking Sabeen Mahmud’s murder with Baloch rights movement and with the cases of the missing-persons in Baluchistan is an attempt to disrepute Pakistan’s security and intelligence agencies. The perpetrators of unrest and disorder in Baluchistan always try to make the role of the Pakistan Army controversial but such propaganda moves could do no harm to the Army because the people of Baluchistan are very well aware of the fact that the Army is doing a lot successfully for making Baluchistan a peacefully prosperous land. The people of Baluchistan are lending full co-operation and support to the Army because they know it very well that peace is the first step to prosperity. They know that the separatists are trying to ruin the peace and serenity of Baluchistan because they are afraid of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, commonly known as CPEC which basically revolves around Gwadar. This project is to be economic game changer in whole the region. This project would turn Gwadar into one of the world’s great trading hubs. Certainly such a marvelous project could never be in favour of those who dream of a shattered and scattered Baluchistan. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Miyan Nawaz Sharif is doing a lot of struggle for giving the people of Baluchistan a life full of peace and prosperity but the forces hostile to Pakistan are trying to create hurdles in his way. It is the duty of every Pakistani to keep a vigilant eye on such hostile forces.
