Rohan Giri
Pakistan’s armed forces run at least 50 commercial entities, including banks, bakeries, petrol pumps, schools, universities, food processing units, milk dairies, cement plants, insurance companies, and even restaurants and wedding halls! These businesses operate under five foundations: Fauji Foundation, Army Welfare Trust, Shaheen Foundation, and Defense Housing Authority.
Can forced disappearances not stop in Pakistan? Till when Sindhi, Balochi as well as other minorities will have to surrender their sons and daughters, their women and men to the brutal acts hoisted by terrorists with the support of Pakistan Army and Inter-Service Intelligence(ISI).
Every house in Balochistan has a person missing, and the toll is mounting day by day. Local media outfit ‘Balochistan Post’ reports that 16 people were picked up forcibly and have gone missing in June 2021 alone. Four of them were abducted on June 12, and the rest have been missing since June 11.
Pakistani security forces are reported to have done this in the Kech district of Balochistan. So at the same time, the government’s consent is also visible in the increasing cruelty in Sindh. According to the World Sindhi Congress (WSC), an estimated 500 Sindhi political dissidents and human rights activists have been forcibly banished in Pakistan, 20 of them in the last year alone. Nearly all eyewitnesses to these disappearances say the perpetrators appear to be official security personnel – rangers, police, and intelligence agencies. The official head of the Pakistan government, Imran Khan, denies all claims of forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings.
For almost seven decades, Balochistan has been the victim of brutality and exploitation by the Pakistani army and terrorists. For the last few years, the same situation has deteriorated in Sindh. Human rights organizations have estimated that 20,000 youths have gone missing in Balochistan since 2004. In addition, there have been reports of Baloch youth being taken by helicopter and thrown down on mere suspicion of sedition charges.
The ISI and the Pakistani army use Baloch women as their slaves, just as women were kept as slaves by barbarian armies in medieval times. According to reports by human rights organizations, more than 2,000 Baloch women have been raped by Pakistani forces since 2003. The Baloch agitators used to call Tikka Khan, who was the Chief of the Pakistan Army, a butcher. But it seems the present establishment is much worse.
Meanwhile, the people living there in Sindh are troubled due to the torture, forced occupation, forced disappearances of the Pakistani security forces. The silence of the Government of Pakistan and the judiciary is encouraging such incidents. Sindh holds 71 percent of Pakistan’s gas fields, 62 percent of Pakistan’s oil, and one of the world’s largest coal reserves, accounting for 99 percent of Pakistan’s total coal reserves (estimated to be worth 23 trillion USD). However, Sindh receives only 11 percent of federal funding, and over 70 percent of Sindh people face multidimensional poverty and malnutrition.
The story doesn’t stop there. The WSC on Forced Conversion and Kidnapping of Sindhi Hindus reports that Sindhi Hindus increasingly face targeted discrimination and violence, including kidnapping for extortion, abduction, and forced conversion of Hindu girls. Forced slavery is involved. The increasing violence has resulted in the exodus of the Hindu population from Pakistan. On average, 20 cases per month are reported where Hindu girls, most of whom are under the age of 16, who are forcibly abducted and converted. In most of these cases, these girls were forcibly married or kept in the custody of the kidnappers. The point to be noted here is that these kidnappers get the protection of the Pakistani army and government.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is loyal to Pakistan Army and ISI and greedy to save his post, so he either keeps silent on their misdeeds or tries to provide political cover.
Pakistan has long been involved in war crimes, human rights violations, and genocide. Still, the level of brutality and inhumanity displayed in Balochistan and Sindh in recent years is shocking as thousands of Baloch nationalist activists have disappeared from Balochistan and hundreds of young Sindhis. And local activists speaking Urdu-Sindh have been kidnapped by Pakistani agencies.
Imran Khan has been silent on the forced disappearances in Balochistan and the inhuman experiments by the Pakistan Army, which are entirely inhuman, such as using chemical and biological weapons obtained from China in Balochistan. However, it is not clear whether these supplies will be complete. The final products were either developed or provided to run tests on Baloch nationalist activists.
It appears that Pakistan refuses to learn from history as there is no change in the dictatorial attitude of the Pakistan Army. Last month, the Lahore High Court said that Pakistan’s army is the biggest land grabber.
As the Sindhi people suffer torture, extra-judicial killings, loss of freedom of religion, and freedom of expression, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, more than 700 people went missing in 2016 alone. According to the WSC, an estimated 500 Sindhi political dissidents and human rights activists have been forcibly banished from Pakistan, 20 of which occurred last year alone. In addition, thousands of Sindhi leaders and individuals have been killed.
In such circumstances, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has the cheek to say says that the enemy of the army is the enemy of Pakistan. The question that needs to be asked from the Pakistan PM is, “ So why are you encouraging the ruffians in the garb of Pak soldiers by staying silent on these atrocities on the people of Sindh and Balochistan?”
It is high time for the international community and human rights institutions to raise their voice against such monstrous acts of Pakistan, start a rigorous investigation, and hold the guilty responsible and accountable.
