ISLAMABAD: The families of purportedly missing persons, who were gathered in a camp here outside the National Press Club, have agreed to postpone their sit in on the persuasion of Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen M Mazari.
Talking to APP on Saturday, Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) Chairman Nasrullah Baloch said that a three-member representative committee would meet Prime Minster Imran Khan next month to convey their grievances to him.
Mazari would arrange their meeting with the premier, he added.
He further said 13 families of the missing persons were with him and the list of 266 missing persons was handed over to Mazari so their status could be ascertained and conveyed to the prime minister.
Baloch hoped that the premier and Mazari would fulfil their demands and said in case of failure, another protest in the capital would be staged till the recovery of missing persons.
Earlier, Mazari said the premier would meet a representative committee of the families of purportedly missing persons in March.
She, in a tweet, said she met the protesting families, demanding the recovery of their loved ones, and conveyed the prime minister’s message to them.
In an accompanying press statement, the minister said she assured the protesters of the government’s “commitment to ensure an end to this practice of enforced disappearances through legislation”.
The process, she said, “is now moving forward”.
Mazari further said the protesting families sought priority to the missing persons of the 13 families, who were present at the protest.
Independent political observers believe some missing persons may have joined militant groups, sponsored and trained by India, to promote insurgency in Balochistan, and not every person missing is attributable to the state.
The military in 2018 set up a special cell at General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi to resolve cases of missing persons.
In September, the ministry of interior started reviewing a draft bill to criminalise enforced disappearances, with no deadline on when it will be finalised. Before that, it had been with the ministry of law and justice since January 2019 for “vetting”.
On Wednesday, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz, while urging the government to resolve the issue of purportedly missing persons, “appealed” to the government to “at least inform” their families, if their relatives were “dead or alive”.
Speaking to reporters at the protest site, she urged the top military leadership to resolve the matter. “I want to say this to the army chief and DG ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] as well. They are citizens of your country, they are your daughters, your mothers,” she had said.
“Produce people, who are alive, in courts and those are not [alive], at least tell the families that they are dead.”
At the site, Maryam also met Sammi Baloch, daughter of Dr Deen Muhammad, who was “abducted” by unknown men in 2009. For over 11 years, Baloch, now 22, gathered outside the Quetta Press Club, wanting to know who took her father.
