Reportedly, activists were protesting outside the Sindh Assembly in Karachi, against the alleged abduction of two Baloch students by the police.
Civil society organisations, activists, and relatives of the two “missing” Baloch students, reportedly, set up a protest camp outside the Karachi Press Club over the past weekend, followed by taking out a rally to the provincial legislature on Sunday evening.
Relatives of the two students – Doda Baloch and Ghamshad Baloch – who attend the University of Karachi, were forcibly taken from their homes near Maskan Chowrangi in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, on June 7. The families said that if the students were involved in any illegal activity then arrest warrants should have been issued and they should have been arrested lawfully.
Protesters removed the temporary barricades at the Arts Council Chowrangi, to stage a sit-in protest outside the assembly. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that authorities tried to negotiate with the protesters as the budget session is expected to begin in the assembly this evening.
According to the demonstrators, the Baloch people have been victims of “executive high-handedness” in Pakistan, and face “unacceptable” circumstances for no fault of theirs.
One of the Baloch activists, Saeeda Zehri, claimed that her father Abdul Hameed Zehri was forcefully taken from Karachi in April 2021, and his whereabouts are still unknown. She has asserted that her father has no criminal record, and shared that intelligence agency personnel have confessed to her that he was “apparently a nice person”.
Saeeda affirmed that the sit-in protest would continue until the students and other Baloch citizens taken illegally were released.
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