Senate body members to visit Balochistan on 27th

ISLAMABAD: The functional committee of the Senate on Human Rights will pay a two-day visit to Balochistan from July 27 amid reports of alleged right abuses, as the provincial government has reached out to Khan of Kalat, urging him to end exile and stage a come-back.
The committee will have meetings with affectees and victims of missing persons and those Hazara community members, who have lost their loved ones in their long-continuing target-killing at the hands of mostly outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Media reports also see Indian RAW’s hand in the on-going bloodshed in the restive province.
Khan of Kalat had left Pakistan shortly after the killing of former governor Balochistan Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 and has not returned.The senators, belonging to the committee, including chairperson Ms. Nasreen Jalil, Leader of Opposition Aitzaz Ahsan, Dr. Jehanzeb Jamaldeni, Mir Kabir Shahi, Sitara Ayaz, Ms. Samina Abid, Farhatullah Babar and Nisar Muhammad, will also interact with family members of the missing persons on July 27.
The legislators will also visit the Central Jail Quetta and ascertain about details of the prisoners and the nature of their crimes, besides seeking views of the lawyers community on how to resolving the issues of human rights.
There will be a session with representatives of the Balochistan government, which claims that the situation has improved in recent months. It is pointed out that several groups of armed Baloch militants have surrendered to the provincial government, being seen as an encouraging indicator.
Talking to The News, Senator Babar that the upcoming visit of their committee would be a formal interaction with those, who were directly affected by the issues of missing persons, killings of Hazara killings and other forms of human right abuses.
He said that the issues the committee would have deliberations upon with the concerned persons and the government functionaries were of a special nature, as the citizens of Pakistan had blamed the state for these.
The veteran lawmaker contended that the human right issues were qualitatively different also from the rest, as certain law-enforcement agencies had also been blamed for these abuses.The proposed visit, he claimed, would send an encouraging message to those, who were looking towards the Parliament to play its role in halting the alleged right abuses.
“The committee will make recommendations in the light of its visit to Balochistan and also see how can the government as well as the Parliament can play their role in resolution of issues,” he maintained.