Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
(There is) …no difference between a human being and animals in Balochistan where mutilated bodies were found on a daily basis.
– Supreme Court of Pakistan, April 6, 2012.
Expressing deep concern over the role of the Frontier Corps (FC) in
the deteriorating situation in Balochistan, Pakistan’s Supreme Court, on
July 26, 2012, directed the Force to produce 30 missing persons, or
face criminal action against its personnel, who had been named in FIRs
for their alleged involvement in their abductions. Heading a three-judge
Bench of the Apex Court, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad
Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, the
Chief Justice (CJ) warned the FC that a failure to produce the missing
persons would force the Court to order the arrest of the concerned FC
officers and personnel.
Observing that Balochistan was burning, but that the executive was
showing little interest in controlling the situation, the CJ added that
the Court had reached a stage where “everything has been identified”,
but was now giving an opportunity to the Federal and Provincial
Governments to act. The CJ noted that, for the preceding three days,
they had been asking the authorities concerned to enforce the
Constitution in Balochistan but no one was ready to take responsibility.
On July 24, 2012, the SC had made known its disappointment over the
Federal and Provincial Governments’ failure to control the worsening law
and order situation in Balochistan, observing that the Province had
undergone a “constitutional breakdown”. The Court had noted that no one
wanted to improve the situation in the Province and that the same
response was being received by the Court in every hearing of the case,
with none of the Court’s orders being implemented.
Meanwhile, on July 25, 2012, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA)
President Yasin Azad complained before the Court that the situation in
Balochistan had reached a point of no return, similar to 1971 – when the
country’s Eastern wing broke away to form Bangladesh – and consequently
needed an urgent political solution. “Believe me, Balochistan is
slipping away,” he told the three-judge Bench.
Nevertheless, Raja Irshad, Counsel for FC, during the hearing on July
24, 2012, submitting a report on behalf of FC on the Province’s law and
order situation, in a written statement declared that the FC had
conducted internal inquiries and found that not a single missing persons
was in its custody.
The Supreme Court, on April 6, 2012, had started hearings on the
petition filed by the Balochistan Bar Association regarding seven
missing persons of the Marri tribe. Following the Chief Justice’s
directive, Quetta Police, who had earlier claimed they had no
information in this regard, produced four of the seven ‘missing’ people
in the Court on the same day. Justice Chaudhry suspended New Sariab
Station House Officer (SHO) Noor Baksh Mengal for his false statement
about the missing persons and directed Police to arrest him. The
remaining three ‘missing persons’ were produced on April 12, 2012. All
the seven people had been picked up during a raid in Quetta’s Sariab
Mill area on March 1, 2012, and had been listed as ‘missing’ since then.
Meanwhile, on July 13, 2012, the CJ ordered Balochistan FC commander
Major General Obaidullah Khattak to produce 30 people in Court, noting
that there was evidence that troops were involved in their
disappearance. The Court had fixed July 24, 2012, as the date for the
production of the missing persons. The latest observations of July 26,
2012, were related to this order.
This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has taken the FC to
task for its involvement in the disappearance of Baloch people. Hearing
petitions on a disappearance case, the SC on May 14, 2012, had observed
that there existed evidence that the FC were involved in abducting
people in Balochistan. The Court had told the FC Inspector General Major
General Khattak that respect for the Force was waning gradually, as 95
per cent of the people in Balochistan had alleged that FC was involved
in the ‘disappearance’ of civilians in the Province.
Abduction and extrajudicial killing has become order of the day in
the Province. The disappearances and killings are widely believed to be
orchestrated by Pakistan’s security and intelligence agencies,
particularly including the FC and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI),
or by their proxies, particularly including the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Aman
Balochistan (TNAB, Movement for the Restoration of Peace, Balochistan).
Indeed, CJ Choudhary, on July 9, 2012, had noted that every third
missing person in Balochistan had been picked up by the FC. The head of
the rights group, Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VFBMP), Nasrullah
Baloch, stated, on July 11, 2012, that “every day Frontier Corps and
secret agencies kidnap political workers in broad daylight and keep them
in their illegal torture cells, and then we receive their
bullet-riddled, mutilated dead bodies.” The VFBMP on January 16, 2012,
claimed that 14,385 persons have gone ‘missing’ since 2005, while more
than 400 bullet riddled and tortured bodies had been dumped just since
July 2010. Earlier, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), on
December 10, 2011, reported that as many as 225 bullet-riddled bodies of
missing persons had been recovered between July 2010 and November 2011.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), on January 31, 2012,
estimated the number of executions of ‘disappeared’ persons at 271 in
just six months, between July and December 2010. Similarly, the New
York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported, in April 2012, that at
least 300 people had been abducted and killed, and their bodies
abandoned, across Baluchistan since January of 2011.
Even on the Government’s own admission, the Country is facing a major
problem of ‘disappearances’, though the numbers conceded are a fraction
of the reality. Justice (Retired) Javed Iqbal, head of the Commission
of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED), on June 9, 2012, put the
number of missing persons in the entire country at 560. This included 57
from Balochistan, 117 from Punjab, 174 from Sindh, 170 from Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, 18 from Islamabad and 12 each from Azad Kashmir and
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He recorded that 42 bodies
of missing persons had been recovered in Balochistan.
Meanwhile, in another sign of the Government’s total disregard for
the Baloch people, the killers of Nawab Akbar Bugti remain at large. On
July 18, 2012, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) once again issued arrest
warrants for seven high-profile accused, including Former President
General Pervez Musharraf, in the Bugti murder case. This was the second
time that the ATC issued the arrest warrants, the first being on July
11, 2012. Nawab Akbar Bugti, the chief of the Jamhoori Wattan Party
(JWP), was killed on August 26, 2006, during a ‘military operation’ in
the Kohlu District of Balochistan. Since then, violence in the Province
has escalated dramatically. The state’s repressive machinery is working
on overdrive, and there is a total collapse of civil governance in the
Province, creating an environment for militant formations to thrive.
According to the data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management
(ICM), the Province has already witnessed 620 fatalities, including 408
civilians, 135 SF personnel and 77 militants, in 2012 (till July 29); as
against 363 fatalities, including 278 civilians, 65 SF personnel and 20
militants during the corresponding period of the preceding year.
On April 6, 2012, the Chief Justice voiced his regret over the fact
that even in the presence of 26,000 Police and 50,000 FC personnel had
proven insufficient to bring the law and order situation in the province
under control. If the Police performed their duty, he added, the
situation could improve.
Regrettably, however, the authorities at the helm, remain in denial
and refuse to accept that the situation is worsening. Chief Minister
(CM) Nawab Aslam Raisani declared, on July 16, 2012, that the situation
is not as bad as is portrayed by the media, adding “it appears some
lobby is trying to pave the way for some unconstitutional step in
Balochistan”. He blamed the same ‘lobby’ for ‘spreading negativity’
about Balochistan through the print and electronic media. An
international conspiracy is at play in Balochistan, the CM claimed.
Though corroborating the same theory of a ‘foreign hand’, Prime Minister
(PM) Raja Parvez Ashraf, on July 17, 2012, noted that the turbulence in
Balochistan, though foreign abetted, was an internal issue for the
State and people of Pakistan to resolve.
Such an internal ‘resolution’ remains far out of sight, even as the
involvement of Government agencies in the case of missing persons,
described as “the key issue of the province” by the Chief Justice, is
documented in increasing detail. The unrelenting bloodletting in
Balochistan that has continued without interruption – in its present
cycle – since 2005, shows no signs of abating.
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
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