By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Just a few hundred yards away from the iconic building of the parliament of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, dozens of students enrolled in the country’s top university, are staging a peaceful yet powerful protest against the mysterious missing of their class fellow.
Hailing from Baluchistan, the country’s biggest province which shares a border with Iran and Afghanistan, these students have been protesting against the alleged kidnapping of their class fellow since the 1st of March. The majority of these students are studying in Quaid-e-Azam University, the country’s top university name after the founder of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Quad e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
A modest number of students are studying at the International Islamic University of Islamabad.
These students would complain of being harassed allegedly by the country’s powerful security agencies. They accused personnel of security agencies of mysteriously disappearing Baloch youth and said the practice continuing.
“Our brothers have been disappearing mysteriously for a long time. All the time people in plain clothes are found behind these kidnappings and manhandling. And now, the students from Baluchistan province have become a prime target. This is not fair,” Zaheer Baloch, a student of Quaid e Azam University told Islamabad Telegraph on Monday during an interview recorded on camera.
According to Zaheer, the story of kidnappings or forced disappearance of people in Baluchistan is as old as the country itself. However, this time, they are protesting against the alleged kidnapping of Hafeez Baloch, a student of M.Phil. in Quaid e Azam University. Reportedly, Hafeez had gone missing mysteriously since early February. According to his family, three people in plain clothes forced their entry into a school in Khuzdar where he has been volunteering at a local school, took him in custody, and fled from the scene.
“Powerful security agencies were behind the kidnapping of Hafeez Baloch,” Shakeel Ahmed, this correspondent.
“We are not sure why did they take him into custody,” Shakeel added.
According to a story carried by The Friday Times, Hafeez Baloch is one of the multiple Baloch students and young people who have been reportedly forcibly disappeared. The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) stated that it had registered at least 5,000 cases of ‘Balochistan’s forcibly disappeared.’ According to the group, at times security forces do not deny the detentions but claim that the individuals in question are militant Baloch fighters.
Soon after Hafeez’s disappearance, Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Athar Minallah questioned the state’s involvement in the disappearance of hundreds of dissidents across the country, in a separate, unrelated case. According to local media reports, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday last week issued notices to the Interior secretary, Defence secretary, Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances and Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad in a petition filed by Abdul Hafeez Baloch’s father, demanding the safe recovery of his son who has been “missing” since February.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the case, where Advocate Imaan Zainab Mazari represented Abdul Hafeez’s father, Haji Hassan. At the onset of the hearing, Advocate Mazari told the court that Hafeez was linguistically profiled while he was studying at the university in the federal capital, and later he went missing from Balochistan’s Khuzdar. In an interview with Islamabad telegraph, Zaheer Baloch said that students were ready to call off the sit-in if they are provided assurance from the government about the early release of Hafeez Baloch and that security agencies will not harass Baloch students.
“We can call off sit-in immediately if the government meets our legitimate demands which include the release of Hafeez Baloch as well as stopping the security agencies from harassing Baloch students,” Zaheer said.
