Pak security agencies carrying out abductions, killings in Balochistan: Chief Minister

QUETTA - Pakistan’s security agencies are involved in extrajudicial killings in Balochistan, the province’s chief minister, Sardar Aslam Raisani, has said.

“Some of the abductions and killings are definitely carried out by security agencies,” Raisani told the BBC in an exclusive interview in Islamabad.

He also stressed that some of the deaths were the responsibility of tribesmen who have been fighting for greater political autonomy.

“They [insurgents and security agents] have been targeting each others’ activists,” he said.

Human rights campaigners said that they were astounded by the Raisani’s candour. Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, “The chief minister’s casual acceptance that the military is disappearing and possibly killing citizens is preposterous and appalling.

“He should be seeking to hold military intelligence agencies accountable rather than appearing to give them sanction for a policy of disappearances and summary execution,” Hasan added.

Hundreds of Baloch people have disappeared in what human rights organisations say are state-sponsored abductions.

“So many people have been killed in Karachi, but is the army carrying out an operation there?” asked chief of the Balochistan National Party [BNP] and former chief minister of the province, Ataullah Mengal, referring to Karachi target killings.

“In Balochistan, however, it’s the army and ISI [intelligence service] who are completely in control. They detain people in broad daylight… Later their mutilated bodies are found in ditches with the words ‘this is an Eid [Muslim festival marking end of Ramadan] gift for Balochistan’ carved on their chests,” he added.

According to the report, the opposition leader and other rebel leaders are of the view that the army has spilt too much blood for them to return, and say that they will settle for nothing less than independence from Pakistan. (ANI)