Shame!

EDITORIAL: What can be said about the cruel, inhuman and unforgivable police crackdown on Baloch protesters demanding nothing more than an end to forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings – especially since it was condemned by the president, prime minister and the Islamabad High Court (IHC) – except that it has brought shame, once again, to the whole nation? Neither the issue of missing persons nor summary killings of the Baloch are new, and the marginalised province’s people have been brutalised whenever they have dared to raise their voice, so what did the state really expect?

Even this time, when the police tear-gassed, water-cannoned, baton-charged and forced women and students back to Quetta, no arm of the state bothered to so much as listen to them, or even wonder what drove them to walk all the way from Turbat to Islamabad just to demand the release of their loved ones, held without charge for the longest time, and an end to the heartless killings of their family members.

Clearly, they have lost faith in the system to address their legitimate grievances from their home province, and they are desperate enough to believe that coming to the capital will at least earn them the media glare that might just force authorities to take them a little more seriously.

Sadly, and shamefully, that is not the case. And even though the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) has given the government a 3-day ultimatum, calling for the immediate release of all demonstrators detained so far, and the quashing of all charges against them – otherwise they would be “compelled to take harsh steps and the state and its administration shall be held responsible” – nobody really expects their concerns to be properly addressed.

And even if local as well as international pressure forces the state to release protestors captured over the last few days, some of whom have also gone ominously “missing”, the real questions that brought Baloch protesters to the capital will most likely be left unanswered.

This matter should be particularly shameful for the caretaker prime minister, who hails from Balochistan. Offering token condemnation and then watching helplessly as subservient security forces trample over the law of the land is worse than not pretending to care at all. This situation has completely boiled over. And since the state is not interested in handling it in compliance with its own laws, the courts will have to step in to keep things from getting any worse.

To its credit, the supreme court bar association (SCBA) has stepped in, calling for an immediate end to “these repressive tactics”, urging the government to prioritise dialogue “to address the legitimate concerns of the protestors”, and even offering legal assistance to demonstrators arrested by the police.

But the legal fraternity needs to go a step further and strike at the very heart of this lingering issue – the matter of missing persons and extrajudicial killings that got the angry and disenfranchised Baloch to gather outside the Islamabad press club in the first place.

Unless this problem is solved, and the Baloch are accorded the rights and dignity they deserve, especially in the face of such unacceptable brutality, the state will not be able to escape the shame it has brought upon itself.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023