KARACHI: The letters sent to the higher authorities by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) inquiring about the disappearance of publisher and activist, Abdul Wahid Baloch, have returned to its Karachi office without being received, HRCP Sindh Vice President Asad Iqbal Butt said.
He said this during a press conference held by Baloch’s family at the press club here on Wednesday. He said, “After forming a fact-finding mission, we sent several letters to the law enforcement authorities. Strangely, all the letters came back to us. And we eventually found out that the letters had reached the authorities but were not received by them.”
Accompanied by Baloch’s daughters Hani and Maheen, Asad said at the press conference after Hani gave details of her father’s disappearance. According to her, on July 26, a telephone operator at the Civil Hospital Karachi, Wahid Baloch, was coming to Karachi from Digri in Mirpurkhas district after meeting friends and attending an event. His friend, Sabir Ali Sabir, a poet, was travelling with him along with his two children.
She added that the van in which the two men were travelling back was stopped at the Superhighway toll plaza by two men in plain clothes. “They asked for Sabir’s identity card and after checking something on their mobile phone handed the ID back to him. Then they asked for Baloch’s card. After checking something on their phone again, they asked him to step out with his baggage. Before leaving with Baloch in a blue Vigo, they asked the van driver to speed away,” she said.
She said that when the (Baloch’s) family approached the Gadap police station, situated right next to the toll plaza, for lodging an FIR, police refuse to register the case. “We were told that the intelligence agencies had picked up my father and police can’t do much about it,” she said. “A police officer asked us to wait for 90 days for my father to return.”
This piece of information was corroborated by Asad who added, “We had difficulty reaching out to the authorities, particularly police, as they refused to get involved in the matter.” After much insistence, the police wrote the incident on a piece of paper and handed it to the family, Hani said.
On the basis of that paper, and a letter from the CHK administration, acknowledging that Baloch was an employee at the hospital, the family filed a petition in the Sindh High Court on August 2. Asad said on behalf of the HRCP, “We demanded that if Baloch has done something wrong, he should be brought before the court of law.” A hearing is scheduled for August 15.
The HRCP formed the fact-finding mission on August 3 to investigate Baloch’s disappearance. However, as Asad said, the mission faced problems in terms of getting to the authorities. He said, “When political activists travel to cities and towns other than their own, it is only natural that they meet people and discuss issues concerning them.”
This hinted at reports corroborated by police and the HRCP representative himself that some Sindhi nationalists had met Baloch while he was in Digri and discussed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other issues related to the region.
“Even if this is the case, it doesn’t make sense,” Asad said. “The HRCP has often been accused by law enforcement authorities of not asking for their version. We’ll try one more time and request the authorities to make the arrest of Baloch legal.”
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