Mullahs attack, police arrest Baluch activist

Inset shows a bloody-faced, Mutalib Baluch. Picture shows Islamic goons of the Sunni Tehrik attacking Baluch protesting against torture outside the Karachi Press Club.

Mutalib Baluch, behind bars in a Pakistani jail in Karachi.
Pictures courtesy BNM

Mutalib Baluch, a Baluch youth from Karachi's Harlem called Lyari, had no idea he would fall victim to torture and get arrested on the international day against Torture as he went to demonstrate outside the Karachi Press Club.

According to media reports, scores of Baluch activists that included women and children had gathered outside the Karachi Press Club last week to demand an an end to extra judicial killings and ethnic genocide in Baluchistan, stopping state terrorism against Baluch activists, and abductions of Baluch youth at the hands of the infamous Inter Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.

As the Baluch were raising slogans in favor of liberation of their occupied homeland, Islamic goons of the Sunni Tehrik arrived on the scene and started chanting slogans in favor of Pakistan and began gagging the Baluch protesters. The Islamists outnumbered and out-muscled the Baluch and severely beat up Mutalib Baluch of the pro-freedom Balochistan National Movement.

The mullahs appeared to have been angered as the secular Baluch protesters were raising slogans that said one of their veteran nationalist leader, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, 89, is their prophet -- not Mohammed of Arabia.

Pakistani police colluded with the Islamists and in stead of arresting his attackers, placed Mutalib Baluch under arrest. [Please see pictures].

Toronto-based Baloch Human Rights Council leader Imtiaz Baluch, who believes in independence of his homeland, drew the attention of the Free World, to the plight of his people.

"Who says that Pakistan and Islam have no link," Baluch thundered. "On a week when entire humanity was protesting against torture, disappearances of political workers and human rights violation in the world, the Pakistanis seem to endorse torture."

He said when the Baluch went to peacefully protest against the political disappearances, tortures, killings and arrests of political activists to the Karachi Press Club, the champions of Pakistan -- the long bearded supporters of Pakistan geography and its obscurantist ideology -- launched a knife and gun attack on unarmed innocent Baloch activists.

"The sin of the Baloch activists was that they were chanting slogans against Pakistan Army and I.S.I.," Imitaiz Baluch said."

The DC-based American Friends of Baluchistan, which fully supports the idea of an independent Baluchistan, condemned the attack on Mutalib Baluch and emphasised Islam is in need of major reforms.

Rasheed Baluch, presiding council member of the AFB, said the Sunni Tehrik seems to be following their holy teaching that says, "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter."

Liberal sections of the Baluch say some teachings of the Quran will have to be revised for a saner, peaceful world.

"Mutalib Baluch was brutally beaten up. The photos of Mutalib Baluch with blood on his face and his subsequent arrest are testimonial of the fact that Pakistani democracy is a farce," Imtiaz Baluch said.

Imtiaz Baluch said Pakistan brutalities were unprecedented last month. "Human rights is non-existent for Baluch residing in Pakistan. There is no word about 8,000 Baluch who were forced into disappearances in Baluchistan.

He said a similar atrocities are being perpetrated on the Baluch in Iran, where public hangings are a daily occurrence.

"The Baloch right from Bander Abbas to Karachi are enduring the same pain and will one day be sharing the same fruits of the freedom [from Pakistan and Iran," the BHRC leader said.

The London-headquartered BHRC had recently come under severe criticism of international Baluch activists for not voicing the demand of an independent homeland for the Baluch and slackness in highlighting human rights abuses in both Pakistan and Iran.

Baluch nationalists are also demanding of the Obama administration, U.K., European Union, Canada, Russia, India and Israel to initiate direct talks with their leaders to counter the mullah tyranny and Taliban onslaught.

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