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22-12-2023
By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report
ISLAMABAD/ QUETTA: “He was our pampered brother. He would come home at night and put his head in our mother’s lap … If you look at my mother’s condition, it is as if she is dead.”
The death of Younus Baloch’s brother, Balaach Mola Bakhsh, in a remote town of Balochistan last month has devastated his family of folk singers. It has also spurred a nearly 1,600-kilometer-long march toward Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, to draw attention to forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the militancy-ravaged province.
Balochistan’s Counter Terrorism Department, or CTD, says Balaach Mola Bakhsh, a tailor, was arrested November 20 with explosives in his possession. The CTD says he appeared in court the next day but died November 23 in a shootout between security officials and militants.
Authorities say that while in custody, Bakhsh was leading them to the militants’ hideout and was killed when armed men fired shots. Three other men who authorities claim were insurgents also were killed in the incident.
The family has rejected the CTD’s claim. It accuses the agency of killing Bakhsh in a fake encounter. They allege he was abducted October 29 from his home and presented in court almost a month later.
Refusing to bury him, the family, along with a large number of men and women, protested under the open sky next to Bakhsh’s coffin to pressure police to file a report against CTD personnel for the alleged killing.
He was eventually buried on November 29. Police filed a report December 9 against four members of the CTD, but only after the top court in the province rejected the government’s attempt to prevent the filing.
The protest over the incident, however, continued to swell with time.
Largely unreported by the mainstream media, the long march from southern Balochistan to Islamabad received a warm welcome along the way. Videos on social media show thousands of ethnic Baloch coming out in different cities to show solidarity with Bakhsh’s family.
Protesters are being blocked from entering Islamabad.
“We demand that those who are disappeared should be released … we demand that CTD be disarmed so that in the future no one is abducted and then killed in a fake encounter. Our movement will continue until our demands are met,” Mahrang Baloch, a leader of the march, told VOA via phone on her way to the capital.
Mahrang Baloch is one of the most prominent leaders of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, or Baloch Unity Committee, that has organized the march. Baloch began her activism following the 2009 abduction of her father. His body, bearing signs of torture, was found in 2011. The circumstances surrounding his disappearance remain unclear.
The convoy of about 200 people stopped in several cities to raise awareness about the issue of enforced disappearances and to register families of victims.
The marchers also faced obstacles. Police baton-charged protesters in Islamabad past midnight Thursday. This came hours after marchers and their supporters staged sit-ins on the capital’s roads as the administration refused to let them proceed to the press club.
