Arif Baloch’s custodial death from torture is a serious violation of human rights. Dr. Naseem Baloch

Baloch National Movement Chairman Dr. Naseem Baloch in his statement termed the torture and killing of Arif Baloch s/o Abdul Qadir as gross violation of human rights. He said his death at the hands of Pakistani institutions was not the first incident of its nature, many people who had been forcibly disappeared from Balochistan had been previously killed in custody through inflicting horrific torture.

He said that Arif s/o Abdul Qadir had been forcibly disappeared on December 24, 2018 on charges of facilitating the attack on the Chinese Consulate. It was only on a later date that his arrest was made public and he was transferred from dungeons to the central jail in Karachi. After months of torture, he was killed in custody and his body was handed over to his family.

Dr. Naseem Baloch further said that no law of the world allows the accused of any crime to be killed by torture or poisoning during interrogation. Even in the Senate of Pakistan, a legal bill had been passed that any government employee involved in violence would be sentenced to ten years imprisonment and a fine of two million rupees. “We believe that these laws are not for the Baloch nation,” remarked he and continued, “these laws are for the free people while the relationship of Baloch with Pakistan is that of a colonised and coloniser.”

He said that Pakistan apart from being an unnatural state, it is also a military state, where laws have no respect before the army and its intelligence agencies. These state organisations make people disappear in broad daylight and inflict the worst torture in custody, but international organizations are silent on this. That is why they take advantage of this exemption to torture and kill people in custody.

The Chairman of Baloch National Movement said that the families of enforced disappeared persons had been going through a state of utter fear after the horrible custodial killing of Arif Baloch because thousands of people have been forcibly disappeared from Balochistan. They fear that their loved ones would also be killed after being tortured during the interrogation and that an attempt would be made to silence the family by calling the murder a mysterious or accidental death. “This incident has also a link to intimidate the family” of thousands of enforced disappeared persons in Balochistan.

At the end of his statement, he appealed to the international human rights organizations to take notice of human rights violations in Balochistan and hold Pakistan accountable so that the Baloch people could get rid of this inhuman violence.