Students are holding protests in front of the Press Club in the capital city of Pakistan, seeking the release of fellow student Hafeez Baloch, who was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani intelligence agencies. This protest has been going on in Islamabad for more than ten days. Balochistan National Party (BNP) chief and National Assembly member Sardar Akhtar Mengal and other leaders also joined the demonstration on Sunday.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) earlier had expressed alarm over reports of a fresh wave of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan, including most recently, Hafeez Baloch, a postgraduate student at the university in Islamabad.
In a statement, the commission said Baloch was allegedly disappeared while in Khuzdar, where he volunteers at a local school. Reports suggest that he was abducted in front of his students, the Dawn newspaper reported.
Cases of enforced disappearances are endemic to Pakistan and there are reports of a fresh wave of “missing persons” in the country. Experts believe that the missing persons may be dead, their mutilated bodies dumped into ditches. They may be interned, locked in some detention centre of dubious legality.