4000 Baloch youth in custody of Pak agencies

The youths are in the "illegal custody" of Pakistan's intelligence agencies and are being subjected to "inhuman torture".

Thousands of youths from Pakistan's restive tribal region, most of them activists of Baloch nationalist parties agitating for provincial autonomy, were in the "illegal custody" of Pakistan's intelligence agencies and being subjected to "inhuman torture", a senior Baloch leader has said.

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Secret agencies had also picked up two "innocent citizens" Rehmatullah Shohaz, a college librarian and Abdullah, a 60-year-old NP activist, on May 7 from Bulleda in Turbat District, National Party leader and member of the Balochistan Assembly Abdul Malik told reporters in Quetta on Monday.

Malik alleged that the kidnapping of innocent citizens from their houses and keeping them in illegal torture cells has become the norm and the families of those detained have no clue of their whereabouts.

The agencies free severely injured men after subjecting them to inhuman torture, he claimed and urged the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take notice of the increasing number of extra-judicial arrests of the Baloch people.

The government is trying to settle political scores with the Baloch leaders by penalising the innocent, Malik said. If there were any charges against the detained people, cases should be registered against them according to the law. They should be presented in a court and, if found guilty, be punished, he said.