Raisani should apologize to the aging mothers of the missing persons for deeply hurting their sentiments

The Balochhal: If historians and journalists were waiting for a haunting quote from Balochistan’s chief minister, here it comes. Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani, the chief minister, astounded everyone in Khuzdar during a press-talk by saying that that most of the missing persons had “deliberately gone underground to malign the country’s intelligence agencies”. If former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf’s infamous quote, ” it is not the 70s that you will hit and run…We will hit you in a way that you don’t know what hit you”, has become one of the most widely quoted statements of a man who devastated Balochistan, one can assertively predict that this statement of Chief Minister Raisani will go down in the history as the most disgraceful proclamation ever made by a Baloch chief minister.

The chief minister repeated what was once said by former dictator General Pervez Musharraf and subsequently by Rehman Malik, the current interior minister, that the missing persons had willingly gone abroad. Gone abroad? For what? He said the elements responsible for target killings were also responsible for hiding their associates and then show them as disappeared people. In his words, the missing persons have deliberately gone underground and now the issue is being raised to embarrass the country’s intelligence agencies. Raisani, the fist chief minister in the history of Balochistan to be elected unopposed, is of the view that it is unreasonable on the part of the missing persons’ families to hold agencies responsible for the whole mess.

Expectedly, a very emotional reaction has come from the families of the missing persons in response to the chief ministers’ statement. If the government cannot deliver justice to the families of the missing persons due to its inefficiency and powerlessness to check the influence of the secrete services then it should at least hurt the sentiments of the mothers, sisters, wives, daughters and sons of the missing persons. Once living a dignified and peaceful life inside their homes, these Baloch mothers are seen languishing from one press club to the other while holding the photographs of their beloved ones. Politics is one thing but no one, including the chief minister, has the right to insult human feelings to give a cover up to his government’s inefficiencies.

Raisani’s current statement –about missing persons having gone underground –sounds ridiculous given the fact that Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, who belongs to the same party of the Balochistan Chief Minister, issued a verified list of 992 missing Baloch persons this month. Does Raisani have an answer to the families of at least these 992 missing persons? Why would these people go underground as most of them belong to the families that live below poverty line? The missing persons’ list includes people from lower professions such as students, shopkeepers, tailor masters, clersk, paramedics etc.

Besides being the chief minister of Balochistan, Raisani is a reputed tribal chief in Balochistan. Thus, people want to share their sorrows with them with the hope that the latter plays a role to resolve their problems. He should apologize to the aging mothers of the missing persons for deeply hurting their sentiments as these aggrieved mothers now prepare to sit on a hunger strike in front of Quetta Press Club from December 30th amid freezing temperature of Quetta.