Baluch activists say the bodies are evidence that the army is pursuing a systematic “kill and dump” campaign to crush pro-independence dissent – a charge the army has repeatedly denied.
“Finally we have decided to go to the UN and make our voice heard about the atrocities against the Baluch people who are being picked up and whose bodies are being dumped on a daily basis,” Mama Qadeer Baluch, the group’s 72-year-old leader, said.
The group has made appeals to the UN and other international organisations in the past, but with little success.
Delegations have in recent years visited Balochistan on fact-finding missions to investigate the claims.
‘Threats and abuses’
Speaking under a stormy Islamabad sky, Baluch told Reuters news agency his group faced pressure and often abuse from some people they encountered in towns and villages across Pakistan, a testament to broader tensions between the Baluch and other ethnic groups.
“In Punjab, threats and abuses were hurled into our faces,” said Baluch, wearing a traditional turban and white robes.
Neither the government nor the army were immediately available for comment on Thursday.
But they have always denied allegations of widespread human-rights violations in Balochistan, branding separatists as terrorists and alleging they are backed by India.
Baluch, founder of the advocacy group Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, said they set off from Quetta on October 27, 2013, and have been on foot ever since.
Groups of young men wearing air pollution masks to conceal their identities have joined the group from nearby cities to protect it from possible abuse or violence, as the procession reached the outskirts of Islamabad on Thursday.
Recalling an incident in an area called Sarai Alamgir in the district of Gujrat, Baluch said his group was intercepted by a car carrying four men who shouted abuse at them.
“We don’t have any hope for the government of Pakistan and its Supreme Court. We have been protesting for the last five years, we have set up protest camps in Karachi, Quetta and visited Islamabad several times,” Baluch said.
“But … the government … is not listening to us,” he said. “When we are not being heard by the government, it is natural that we should knock on the other door.”
Courtesy: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/02/baluch-protesters-walk-across-pakistan-201422814156729736.html
