QUETTA: A six-member United Nations (UN) Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) which arrived here on Saturday on a two-day visit met Balochistan Home Secretary Naseebullah Bazai, Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad, representatives of political parties and families of the missing persons.
Talking to the visiting UN team, Home Secretary Bazai assured that the federal and provincial governments were making all out efforts to recover the missing persons and offered his cooperation to the group.
He said the cases of missing persons had considerably went down and now there was a verified list of 94 missing persons. He said that 53 missing persons had been recovered and dead bodies of 23 had also been found.
He said the group was free to meet any body and pointed out that a judicial commission was working on missing persons’ issue, while the case was also being heard by the Supreme Court. The home secretary said a case had been registered against the murder of ten labourers in Dasht.
Earlier, the group arrived in Quetta from Karachi and was taken under strict security to a hotel.
On the occasion, relatives of the missing persons held a protest demonstration to express their feelings to the delegation. The group also met representatives of the Human Rights Commission and leaders of Baloch Republican Party and Hazara Democratic Party.
The delegation had been visiting various parts of the country and meeting officials, representatives of civil society organisations and UN agencies.
During its 10-day mission undertaken at the invitation of the government, the UN team was to study the measures adopted by Pakistan to prevent and eradicate enforced disappearances and issues related to truth, justice and reparation for the victims.
The delegation, comprising Olivier de Frouville, the Chair-Rapporteur, and Osman El Hajjé, member, was being accompanied by members of the Secretariat of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.