By Shahid Husain
Karachi
As many as 12,000 people are “missing” in Balochistan, including 143 women, said Qadeer Baloch, Vice Chairman, Voice for Baloch Missing People, while talking to The News on Sunday.
He made the observation at a camp that started in front of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Sunday. Previously the camp was established in Balochistan’s provincial capital Quetta for 60 days.
“Even the government of Balochistan acknowledges that 992 people are missing in Balochistan but we believe that about 12,000 people are missing,” he said.
Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan in terms of area and it includes sensitive areas where nobody can reach. These include Marri and Bugti areas and some areas in Mekran,” Baloch said.
He went on to say that about 150,000 people from Marri and Bugti areas have migrated to Karachi and the interior of Sindh besides Punjab since military dictator General (retd) Pervez Musharraf took over the reins of power and let loose a reign of terror on the impoverished people of Balochistan.
“During the last three or four months, dead bodies of 65 persons were thrown at different places after they were severely tortured by intelligence agencies,” he said.
“Interior Minister Rahman Malik claims that security agencies are not involved in these killings. The question arises who is then involved in these killings? This should be investigated,” he said.
“My son Jalil Reki, who is information secretary of Baloch Republican Party, is missing for the last two years,” he pointed out. “Dr. Bashir Azeem, General Secretary Baloch Republican Party and Charkar Qambrani are also missing,” he added.
The situation is really perplexing because despite explicit directives of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the “missing” people are not being produced in the court of law.
Human rights activist Abdul Wahab Baloch, who was severely tortured by intelligence agencies in 2008, was also present at the camp.
In an earlier story by this scribe, Wahab, a 57-year-old Baloch activist, had told The News that he was injected with a drug by intelligence agencies after he was picked up on May 28, 2008 from near Zainab Market, Karachi, where a demo was held to create a nuclear bomb.
“After beating me up severely for a day, I was shifted to another place and pushed on a stretcher-like thing. Somebody shot an injection in my forearm, and I felt as if my entire body had become numb. However, my brain was still active,” he recalled. “I started speaking voluntarily, but I don’t remember what I said. When I regained consciousness, I had a severe headache and my mouth was dry.”
Doctors fear that in all probability, Wahab was injected with a drug that has been nicknamed “Truth Serum”. After taking the truth serum, a person is said to become highly talkative, and shares his/her thoughts without hesitation.
The proper name for this drug is thiopental sodium, eminent psychiatrist Prof. S. Haroon Ahmed told The News, explaining that the drug is also called sodium pentothal. “There are various kinds of methods used to extract information from people suspected of being involved in anti-social or so-called anti-state activities. Besides physical torture, psychological methods are keeping a person incognito and keeping him awake for a long time and altering all normal expectations.
“There are, however, other methods in which doctors are involved, such as administering injections of tripentina sodium (truth serum). The effect of the injection is that the person become uninhibited, and frequently pours out facts that he/she would otherwise not disclose. The involvement of medical community in any act of torture or forced extraction of information has been banned by the international medical community. This has also been endorsed by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA),” Dr Ahmed said.
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