Outrage over police action against Baloch protesters

ISLAMABAD: Capital police used water cannons, swung batons, and arrested dozens of activists in an overnight crackdown to stop Baloch protesters from entering the federal capital to denounce the forced disappearances and alleged extrajudicial killings in Balochistan province, the organisers said Thursday.

About 200 protesters, some of them families with children, began their nearly 1,600-kilometer convoy around November 28, heading towards Islamabad from the town of Turbat. They planned to rally in the capital to draw attention to the death of Balaach Mola Bakhsh. The 24-year-old, according to media reports, in police custody in Balochistan in November.

Police say Bakhsh was carrying explosives when he was arrested in November, and two days later he died when militants ambushed a police van that was transporting him. Activists say police were holding him since they arrested him in October, and allege he was killed intentionally in a staged counterterrorism operation.

Since then, human rights activists and Bakhsh’s family have been demanding justice for him. They also want the counterterrorism officials who they claim killed the man arrested.

As the group of vehicles carrying the demonstrators reached the outskirts of Islamabad before dawn on Thursday, police asked them to stop and turn around. When the demonstrators refused, officers started beating dozens of activists with batons.

Police in Islamabad insisted they avoided the use of force against the rallygoers, but videos shared by the rallygoers on social media showed police dragging women, swinging batons and using water cannons in freezing temperatures to disperse the protesters. Police were also seen throwing demonstrators into police trucks.

Baloch activist Farida Baloch tweeted that her “elderly mother and niece, symbols of resilience, faced arrest and brutality in Islamabad.”

She asked the international community to take “notice of the plight of Baloch activists and missing persons’ families.”

Meanwhile, Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Aamer Farooq warned the capital police chief against creating any hindrance in the protest staged by the Baloch marchers, saying that they have the constitutional right of demonstration.

Islamabad Inspector General (IG) Akbar Nasir Khan appeared before the IHC bench upon being summoned by the CJ after the court took up a plea against the arrest of Baloch protesters — earlier on Thursday.

Human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari represented the protesters in the plea filed by long march organisers Sami Baloch and Abdul Salam.

During the hearing, IG Akbar Khan informed the court that the protestors had clubs and also pelted stones which resulted in injuries to some people. He also apprised the CJ that the government has also formed a committee to address the grievances of the protesters.

At this, CJ Farooq said that the court doesn’t have the matter of the committee before it. Instead, he asked about the status of 86 marchers, named in the petition, who were arrested during the protest. The IG informed the court that there was no detail available of the listed individuals.

“Let them protest who have come to protest, its their constitutional right,” CJ Farooq remarked.

The IG further stated that all the people nominated in the FIR registered at the Tarnol Police Station have been released, while those arrested in the FIR registered at Kohsar Police Station have been presented before the magistrate.

“Some have been discharged, some have been [remanded] into judicial [custody], and some have been kept for identity parade,” he added.

The IHC CJ then warned the IG against police officer impeding the protests.

After that, the court adjourned the hearing while seeking a report regarding the number of people detained, remanded in judicial custody, and released, by today (December 22).

Earlier during the hearing, petitioners’ counsel Mazari told the court that force was used against the protesters, who were also baton-charged. “Peaceful protesters were also detained, which is illegal,” Mazari said, adding that the protesters included women and children.

Meanwhile, a district and sessions court in Islamabad ordered the release of 33 Baloch marchers on bail. It said that the arrested protesters should be kept in judicial custody in Adiala jail till the submission of bonds.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), meanwhile, strongly condemned the violent state crackdown on Baloch citizens.

“HRCP is appalled by the state’s response to peaceful protestors, with women, children and the elderly subjected to unwarranted force in the form of water cannons and use of batons. Numerous women protestors have reportedly been arrested and separated from their male relatives and allies. At least one Baloch woman journalist covering the long march has also been arrested,” it said in a statement. “All those detained must be released immediately and unconditionally. We strongly urge the government to organise a delegation immediately to meet the protesters, give their legitimate demands a fair hearing and commit to upholding the rights of the Baloch people,” the HRCP said.

Separately, PPP human rights cell chief Farhatullah Babar said the excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators from Turbat to raise their voice against enforced disappearances in Rawalpindi and subsequently in Islamabad is condemned in the strangest terms.

After visiting the uprooted camp in front of the National Press Club, Islamabad, Thursday afternoon, Farhatullah Babar said that the protestors did not expect that the march would result in the production of the disappeared nor they sought a show down.

“They only wanted their voice to reach out to the powers that be in the capital and to the world at large,” he said.

He said the Commission of Enforced Disappearance set up under legislation in 2010 has utterly failed as it has not identified, let alone prosecuted and punished, a single perpetrator of the crime.

Later, addressing a joint press conference flanked by caretaker ministers Fawad Hasan Fawad and Jamal Shah, Information Minister Murtaza Solangi said that in line with the directions of caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, a committee has been formed to hold talks with the Baloch protestors. “From the government side, Fawad Hasan Fawad spoke with the protesters,” he added.

The negotiation committee — headed by the privatisation minister — assured the protesters of addressing all of their grievances.

On his part, the privatisation minister said the government had to take measures to avoid a “catastrophe”, adding that they had intelligence reports about it. The police launched the crackdown after some “local people” joined the protestors and tried to disrupt the law and order situation, Fawad added.

“Some people — with their faces covered — came there and started pelting stones,” the minister claimed. He, however, admitted that those protestors who reached Islamabad from Balochistan were not involved in the violence.

Responding to a question, the minister said that Islamabad police had been directed to release all the women and children. “Some of them are yet to be identified,” he said, adding that 90 percent of the men arrested during the crackdown have been released.

“The matter of those nominated in the FIR is in the court.” He further said that the government would comply with the court’s order in letter and spirit.