8 August 2012;
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has
collected details of detention and torture centres in Pakistan, where
missing persons are held for long periods of time in order to force them
to confess their involvement in terrorist and sabotage activities. The
information about the places of illegal detention was collected from the
persons who were detained in these centres for several years after
arrest. Their whereabouts were never made known to their family members.
Persons
released from these centres are often abandoned on the roadside.Many
of the missing persons have testified in courts and to the media that
they were kept in the custody by the army and that they were tortured.
Military
intelligence (MI), Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), Federal
Intelligence Agency (FIA), Pakistan Rangers, and the Frontier
Constabulary (FC) are the main agencies who are keeping persons
incommunicado and who torture them to confess their involvement in
anti-state activities.
June 5, 2008
Torture and Detention centers in Balochistan:
In All over Balochistan there are dozens of military detention centers,
where people after their arrest, are detained and tortured to force
confession statements about their alleged activities against the army in
the province. Following are places in Balochistan province where
Pakistan army and FC are running their torture and detention centres:
Quli Camp Cantonment Queta:
Quli Camp Cantonment Queta, in the capital of Balochistan province. In
front of this detention camp there is a mountain called as Koh-e-Murad
(Dead Mountain) which has been taken over by the Pakistan Army and is
used as a dumping area for some sensitive arms and ammunitions.
According to local people, people are brought here and detained for
several months.
Khuzdar
Cantonment area:
Safe house of the ISI at Khuzdar
Cantonment area. The Khuzdar district is in southeast of the province
and all detained or arrested persons by the state intelligence agencies
from south and southeast districts are brought and kept over here. The
place is notorious for torture.
Fort at
Turbat town:
The fort at
Turbat town, a sub-district of the province. This fort is used for
keeping missing persons and still there are dozens of missing persons in
the fort, but it is under the control of FC. In the port city of Gwadar
there is one more camp used by the FC for keeping people in illegal
detention for several months.
Sibi, Dera Bugti and Kohlu:
In the northern
part of the Balochistan province, there are several places of detention
and torture in three districts namely - Sibi, Dera Bugti and Kohlu.
Here, the military have their own bases and camps. But in military terms
these army centres are called "settlements" instead of cantonments. In
these districts the persons arrested are mainly from the central and the
northern parts. The main military detention centres are in Loti gas
field, Pir Koh gas field and Dera Bugti gas field.
Most
of the detainees are local residents of the above named districts. They
are charged with mutiny against the 'army control' of the districts,
blowing up of the main gas supply line to the other parts of the
country, sabotage, bomb attacks on military installations, affiliation
with different nationalist parties and association with the Balochistan
Liberation Army.
In Kohlu district's military
settlement there is one check post. This is purely run by the army which
has torture cells. In Sui sub-district there is also a military check
post which runs torture cell besides a main detention centre in the
"settlement" at Sui gas field.
Posts
