Since 2005, the Human Rights Commission has been paying special attention to the increasingly alarming human rights situation in Balochistan. The Commission has organized four fact-finding missions to the province, the reports of which have been widely disseminated. A special desk on missing persons has also been set up in Quetta that maintains data on enforced disappearances and killings.
However, it was after reading Mohammed Hanif’s account of his meeting with Qadeer Baloch in Dawn that the idea of a book came to me. Hanif’s conversation with Qadeer Baloch about the disappearance and killing of his son, Jaleel Reiki, was moving – and disturbing – in a way that statistics can never be. I knew that if HRCP were to publish a book about the missing in Balochistan, Hanif would be the writer to put the stories together. He was quick to agree and joined HRCP’s fact-finding mission to Balochistan in May 2012.
The stories published in this collection are mostly based on the interviews Hanif conducted with families of the missing during the fact-finding mission. He has narrated their tragedy with empathy and understanding. It is hoped that this publication will evoke similar feelings in those in a position to meaningfully address the sufferings of these families.
HRCP continues to share the pain of the families of two of its activists, Naeem Sabir, shot dead in Khuzdar (March 2011) and Siddique Eido who was made to ‘disappear’ and whose body was recovered in Pasni (April 2011). Their killers remain at large.
Zohra Yusuf
Chairperson
December 2012
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Baluch Sarmachar 