KARACHI: Another ‘missing person’ from Balochistan was found dead in a Surjani Town locality of the city near Manghopir on Thursday, bringing the number of people who had been missing and were found dead over the past two months in Karachi to over a dozen.

The latest incident has raised apprehensions among the rights groups about the situation in Balochistan.

The police said that they had received information about the presence of a body on the Northern Bypass near Manghopir in the morning.

The man was identified as Naseebullah Baloch, son of Haji Ibrahim, resident of Dashti Bazaar in Turbat.

Duty officer of the Surjani Town police station Khan Mohammed told Dawn that the body was identified from a chit found in his pocket, which perhaps his alleged killers had placed.

A post-mortem examination conducted at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital showed that he had been hanged to death.

The Turbat police and the father of the victim, Ibrahim, told the Surjani Town police that Naseebullah had been missing from Turbat since April 28.

The police quoting the father said that his son with “three to four other persons” was taken away by unidentified men from Turbat at night.

The police said that over the past few months “over half a dozen people had gone missing” in Balochistan and were found dead in deserted areas of Surjani, linked with the border area of the province.

However, Abdul Qadeer Baloch of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons said bodies of around “13 missing Baloch activists” had been found in Karachi from March to May 2 (Thursday).

He claimed that “intelligence agencies” took away Baloch activists and dumped their bodies in Karachi in their vain hope that they would not be blamed and such killings would be attributed to ongoing targeted killings in the metropolis.

Abdul Qadeer Baloch — whose son Jalil Reki was also a victim of enforced disappearance and was later killed — said that for the past 10 years such enforced disappearances and killings continued unabated in Balochistan.

He said he received information about the murder of Naseeb Baloch on Thursday morning and “added his name to the list of murdered Baloch activists.”

“This is a new and disturbing trend witnessed in Karachi for the past two months,” said chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Zohra Yusuf.

She said that the Supreme Court had taken cognizance of such disappearances, but it appeared that no “significant reduction” in disappearances and subsequent killings had occurred in Balochistan.

Ms Yusuf said the HRCP had been informed that some days back around “nine persons have been taken away from Turbat”.

It gave rise to the suspicion that Naseebullah might be among those while the whereabouts of the other ‘missing persons’ were not known, she added.

“Obviously, such killings would have an adverse effect on the forthcoming general elections as the parties taking part in the polls would come under attacks by two types of the militants in Balochistan,” said the HRCP Sindh official.