Violence in Baluchistan escalates – independent investigation of murders called for

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) called on Tuesday for an independent investigation of politically motivated murders in Pakistan’s crisis area of Baluchistan. The High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, Navanethem Pillay, should send an investigation commission to Baluchistan to clear up the circumstances of the murder of three leading representatives of the ethnic group of the Baluchi. "Only the United Nations can guarantee an independent investigation of the murders which were clearly fired by political motives, since official security forces appear to be involved in the execution of the opposition politicians”, said the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius.

On the evening of the 8th April the bodies of the three Baluchi leaders were found and now the violence in the region lying in the south-west is escalating. At least eleven people were killed in the riots. Demonstrators in the town of Quetta and several other parts of Beluchistan burned down banks, cars and government institutions. A general strike lasting several days brought public life in the region to a halt.

Pakistan’s security forces are held by human rights activists to be

responsible for the murder of Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, Sher Mohammad and Lala Muneer Jan Baloch. "The facts indicate clearly that members of the security forces took the three victims into custody, tortured and murdered them, finally just throwing away the mutilated bodies”, said the chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Asma Jahangir. The Asian Human rights Commission also accused Pakistan’s security forces of the murder of the Baluchi leaders.

The three murdered persons had already been abducted by the security forces in the years 2006/2007, when they were held for weeks in secret and tortured. The intention was to obtain information from them on the forbidden liberation movement. On their release the Baluchi had reported in detail on the torture they had been subjected to in captivity. The murdered persons belonged to a commission set up by the government to investigate the fate of some 4,000 Baluchi who disappeared in the outbreak of the fighting in the year 2001.

The Baluchi, who number approximately nine million, live in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, some 60 percent of them in Pakistan in an area the size of Germany. The Baluchi have been calling for years for more self-government. In 2001 the conflict in Pakistan escalated in an open war.

For further information please approach Ulrich Delius, at tel. ++49 (0)160