Baloch, Sindhi, Pashtun activists lambast Pak Army for human rights violations

Activists from Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan have lambasted the Pakistani Army for carrying out human rights violations against the minorities in the country.

Speaking during his intervention at the 43rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Qambar Malik Baloch, a human rights activist from Balochistan said that thousands of activists from his province who dared to raise their voice for justice have become the victim of "kill and dump policy" of the Pakistani state, while the whereabouts of many others remain unknown.

"Thousands of the Baloch political activists are being illegally detained in Iranian and Pakistani prisons. The whereabouts of thousands of forcibly disappeared persons are not known. Thousands have been the victims of the kill and dump policy of the Pakistani state."

 

He added, "In its assimilation strategies, the Iranian and Pakistani states are denying education in the Balochi language and their cherished socio-cultural values are systematically being degraded."

"Balochistan is rich but its people are kept poor because of the ruthless exploitation of resources to the advantage of Punjabi and Persian nations. Now, China is emerging as a new colonial power in Balochistan, eyeing the Baloch resources under the CPEC," he said.

Dua Naz Kalhoro, a Sindhi political activist also blamed Pakistan and its Army for human rights violations on people in the Sindh province.

She said, "We want to draw the Council's attention to our deep concern about illegal grabbing of hundreds of thousands of acres of land of indigenous Sindhi people in Pakistan."

Kalhoro said that thousands of acres of agricultural land in the province has been "taken away by the Pakistani Army" in the last few years as part of the designs to convert Sindhis into a minority in their own motherland.

"Bahria Town, a residential scheme, is just one example, where the Supreme Court found the acquisition of over twenty-two thousand acres land illegal. However, making a mockery of the judicial system an implementation bench fined Bahria Town Rs 460 billion (3 billion US dollars) and legalised it," the activist said.

"As a result, with the support of police and other agencies, they are forcing hundreds year old communities to leave, destroying villages, intimidating and humiliating people and implicating in false cases who refuse to leave. Scores of similar residential schemes are mushrooming on the most valuable lands of Sindhi people owned by various wings of the Army and by powerful persons and companies supported by them," she added.

Shahi Sadat, a Pashtun political activist told the Council, "In Pakistan, Pashtuns and other minorities have no rights to ask the reason for extrajudicial killings, target killing, kidnapping, torture, and rape of their loved ones by the state security."

"Now the question is: Where are those human rights and women rights organisations to hear the agonizing cries of the Pashtun and Baloch women who are either used as sex slaves in military jails or beaten to death by the so-called good Taliban who are sheltered, trained, and funded by the same Army?" Said Sadat.

He added, "Pashtuns have requested time and time again that a truth commission be established under the supervision of the International community to investigate the crimes committed against the Pashtun minority by the Army.