VARANASI:
Baloch human rights activist Mama Qadeer on Wednesday sought active support from India to end 'oppression' of Baloch people by Pakistan government agencies.
"I request Prime Minister
Narendra Modi to help Baloch people in the manner India had helped Bangla people to form an independent Bangladesh. We are grateful to Modi for taking up the issue of Balochistan. We earnestly appeal to him to stand by us and end our sufferings," Qadeer told reporters.
Vice-chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Person (VBMP), Qadeer reached Varanasi on Wednesday to raise the issue of release of missing Baloch persons.
He alleged, "After Modi raised the issue, Pakistan army and secret agencies increased their atrocities against the Baloch people. However, the world has now taken note of our suffering."
Talking about his personal loss, Qadeer said his son
Jalil Ahmad Rekhi was abducted and killed in 2009.
"Over 45,000 Baloch people have been missing since 2000. Then home minister Aftab Sherpao had said in Gwadar in 2004 that 4,000 Baloch people picked up by the Pakistan army and secret agencies had vanished. In 2015, then home secretary
Akbar Durani admitted that 13,000 Baloch people were arrested. Minister
Sarfraz Bugti also claimed to have abducted 9,000 people," he alleged.
Qadeer added that Pakistan occupied Balochistan on March 27, 1948, and its army and secret agencies have been committing atrocities against the Baloch people since.
He said he was attacked several times during a march in 2013-2014. "However, after the march, the UN Human Rights Commission took cognizance of our suffering," he said. Qadeer and his 11-year-old grandson were invited to the city by Hind-Baloch Forum, established after the visit of Baloch nationalist leader Naela Quadri Baloch in November 2016.
Mama Qadeer speaks in Varanasi.
