QUETTA: The chairman of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), Nasrullah Baloch, on Sunday called upon the government to ensure implementation of the recommendations of the United Nation’s working group for the recovery of missing persons.

Speaking at a press conference along with VFBMP vice chairman Mama Abdul Qadeer Baloch at the years-long hunger camp for the recovery of missing persons outside the press club, he called upon human rights organisations to establish a joint force on the issue of missing persons.

Nasrullah Baloch appealed to the federal and Balochistan governments to pay attention to the issue of hundreds of missing political activists. Besides, he appealed to the Supreme Court to hear cases of missing persons at least once a month.

“We have organised historical long march from Quetta to Karachi and Islamabad on the missing persons’ issue,” Nasrullah Baloch said.

He said that despite the years-long struggle the issue of missing persons had not been resolved. Hundreds of families whose dear ones had been missing for years were still waiting to know about their whereabouts, he said, adding it was a pity that successive federal and provincial governments had been continuously ignoring this humanitarian issue.

The VFBMP chairman said that with the consent of affected families 41 cases of missing persons had been sent to the Senate’s Committee on Human Rights. Copies of these cases have also been sent to the National Commission for Human Rights and Senator Dr Jahanzeb Jamaldini, member of the Senate committee.

He said despite repeated assurances given by officials and human rights organisations no progress had been made for the recovery of missing persons.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2017