IT is impossible to avoid the topic of the missing people of Balochistan for too long. An estimated 5,000 people are on Balochistan’s list of the disappeared. Every now and then, there is a new story about a person who has gone missing or a follow-up of an older one about someone who had disappeared a long time ago. This is how it has been for many years; there has been no reprieve for those who have been in perennial protest mode ever since they staged their inaugural demonstration against forced disappearances outside the Quetta Press Club 11 years ago. The daily protest sit-in began there on June 28, 2009, after Dr Deen Mohammad went missing, notes Reuters in a feature. Most tellingly, the news agency also describes how the recent attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi “came a day after hundreds of relatives of missing Baloch gathered in Quetta to mark the four thousandth day of their protest since the disappearance of Dr Deen Mohammad”. The mention of the militants and the protesters in the same breath would indicate how easy it is to conflate the two. While it is true that there is a history of state oppression, economic deprivation and provincial partisanship behind the long-running Baloch insurgency led by organisations adamant to carry out terrorist attacks, often in the name of the disappeared, it is the latter that must be treated as a human rights issue. For too long have people been picked up, never to be heard of again, or their mutilated bodies found months later. Many, including the families of the victims, have accused the state which has yet to institute a fair system of justice and accountability for those it deems dangerous.

There are fears that the latest upsurge in high-profile militant action by certain groups claiming to represent the ‘deprived’ sections of the Baloch population could well lead to hasty policy decisions. And indeed there are several instances of typecasting on the basis of caste, creed, ethnicity etc. The answer lies in the opposite direction. Elements in the equation must be separated — there are those who have protested peacefully for years and then there are the angry young men determined to target state institutions and interests. This should be followed by implementing a fair, transparent formula to engage first with those who are ready to talk and then go on towards the angrier sections.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2020