Govt urged to trace ‘missing persons’
By Our Staff Reporter Daily Dawn

Wednesday, 21 Jul, 2010
01:34 AM PST

KARACHI, July 20: Speakers at a seminar here on Tuesday urged the government to accord a top priority to the cases of missing persons in Balochistan and take urgent measures for their recovery. They said it was the responsibility of the state to explain to the concerned families the whereabouts of such persons.

The speakers termed the Balochistan issue “a political as well as humanitarian one and called for finding a permanent solution to the problems of Balochistan”.

Titled ‘The case of missing persons of Balochistan’, the seminar was organised by the Baloch Unity Conference (BUC) Karachi in collaboration with the Karachi Press Club.
Presided over by retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed of the Sindh High Court, the speakers at the seminar included human rights activist Iqbal Haider, Jeay Sindh Mahaz chairman Abdul Khaliq Junejo, provincial chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami Asadullah Bhutto and National Workers Party leader Yusuf Mustikhan.
The speakers accused the rulers in Islamabad of complicating the Balochistan issue, saying that either they were not keen to resolve it once and for all or they did not understand its gravity. They alleged that the rulers were interested only in exploiting the mineral, gold and copper resources of the province.
Expressing solidarity with the struggle of the Baloch people, they however urged the Baloch people not to carry on their struggle in isolation.
In his remarks, Advocate Iqbal Haider linked the case of the missing persons in Balochistan with the struggle of other oppressed people in the country.
He said oppressed people could achieve their rights only by forging unity in their ranks. He warned them against the sinister designs of the rulers who wanted to create divisions among them.

Paying tribute to the people of Balochistan for their untiring struggle, the former HRCP leader said the people of Balochistan had been striving for their rights for a long time and had rendered great sacrifices during this struggle, but the rulers had never granted them their due rights that caused bitterness among the Baloch youth.
Jeay Sindh Mahaz chairman Abdul Khaliq Junejo described the issue of Balochistan as the issue of human and political rights.
He said the issue had remained unresolved because it was linked with the basic structural changes in the state system.
“All state institutions, including the judiciary and parliament, did not want any change in the state system,” said the Sindhi nationalist leader. “Unless the system changes, Balochistan and Sindh will continue to suffer.”
He said the missing persons were not restricted only to Balochistan, as political activists had been disappearing in Sindh also. In this regard he referred to the case of Ashok Kumar, saying that so far the whereabouts of Mr Kumar were not known. He said the Balochistan issue could only be resolved by the Baloch people themselves.
Yusuf Mustikhan of the National Workers Party traced the history of Balochistan, claiming that it was annexed by Pakistan under a treaty. However, he said, the problem could still be solved politically.
He advised the Baloch youth not to look at the problem in isolation and join the struggle of like-minded political forces for the protection of their rights.

In his closing remarks, Justice Wajiuddin Ahmed deplored that successive governments of the country had denied the Baloch people their legitimate rights.

He said that in the past the British rulers ignored the development needs of the province, which remained neglected after independence because of ill-advised policies of the rulers. The retired justice partly blamed the tribal chieftains for the backwardness of the province.

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