8/18/13

Suspicious Details Emerge after Three Men Burned Alive in Pakistan

Suspicious Details Emerge after Three Men Burned Alive in Pakistan

By Zulfiqar Shah, Truthout | Article Numbers can be affecting. It is shocking indeed to learn through the reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that at least 861 persons were disappeared by security agencies in Pakistan during 201 2; around 325 Shia minority persons were killed on sectarian grounds; and around 1 00 were ex trajudicially killed by the military officials. These numbers do not include the thousands who lost their liv es in Balochistan and Sindh in military actions during the past decade. What pierces through the deepest core of a human heart about the rights v iolations are the stories, which unfold, as numbers cannot, the real lev el and nature of brutalities. A single instance is enough to portray the truth about the so-called internal national security and sov ereignty notions of a federation like Pakistan, where the terms "security " and "sov ereignty " apply to geography only - not to the people. On the sunny Thursday of April 21 , 201 1 , Pakistani electronic media carried breaking news of the burning aliv e of three Sindhi nationalist leaders - Qurban (Photo: p.Gordon / Flickr) Khuhawar, Ruplo Choly ani and Nadir Bugti - in Sindh's Shanghar district by unknown assailants. The v ictims were associated with Jeay Sindh Mutahida Mahaz (JSMM) - a political organization adv ocating Sindh independence recently banned by Pakistan authorities. All of the v ictims, the report said, were sitting in the car, which was torched on a country road. After a few day s, we formed a fact-finding mission of rights activ ists, journalists, and academicians to inquire into the incident on the behalf of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. It was a driv e of 1 1 7 kilometers of curv y road from Hy derabad, the second-largest city of Sindh, amid the mix ed tex ture of green pastures and sand dunes on the roadsides. The place where the incident occurred was 7 .5 kilometers from Sanghar town on the Sanghar-Khipro road and was between Bakhoro Bridge and Mithrau Canal Bridge - historical sites where, during early 1 940s, a Sindhi Hur guerrilla army was stationed fighting British troops for the freedom of Sindh. A small bazaar runs between both bridges with a couple of dozen shops and tea v endors. The distance between the bridges is 1 kilometer. We started mingling with the people regarding the incident. Ey ewitnesses told us that the incident took place by 1 :30 PM. According to them, a couple of hours before arriv al of the ambushed, ex traordinary mov ement by a black car and a military green jeep was observ ed. Both v ehicles, the onlookers said, were positioned near Mithrau Bridge earlier and started blocking and div erting the v ehicular traffic. Furthermore, people were asked to stay in the bazaar until told otherwise. As soon as the v ictims' car (ARW 028), hailing from Sanghar, crossed the Bakhoro Bridge, a white car was already chasing them. It blinked the front lights near Bakhoro Bridge and turned away . Swiftly thereafter, a red double cabin Jeep already positioned at the bridge mov ed toward the v ictims' car. A car from the Bakhoro Bridge side also reached there. According to the peasants in the nearby fields, both v ehicles opened fire from automatic guns on the v ictims' car from two directions. The v ictims' car lost the track and fell in the ditch near cultiv ated fields. According to the peasants working
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8/18/13

Suspicious Details Emerge after Three Men Burned Alive in Pakistan

in nearby fields, the assailants, in military camouflage as well as in plainclothes, disembarked from the v ehicles and opened fire ov er the car again. They also threw small plastic bags on the car. Witnesses said the car caught fire from v arious directions immediately after the bags were thrown. Fifteen men remained at the site for around ten minutes after torching the car, said Juman Leghari - a peasant from nearby v illage Maulv i Kher Mohammad Ahmedani. Six or sev en were in commando camouflage, and the others were in plainclothes, he added. Once the assailants left, by standers rushed to the car. Shortly thereafter, a black car reached the scene from the direction of Sanghar; people in the car fired shots into the air, and the car drov e away . Police reached the scene afterward. By standers wanted to fight the fire, but the police did not allow them to. In the meantime, a person cried from the torched car that he was aliv e and begged for his rescue, Muharram said with tears in ey es. "As we rushed to him, police officials stopped us by shouting that the ambushed persons were terrorists." At this point, the v ictim later identified as Noorullah Tunio said they were Sindhi nationalists and that the Punjabi (Pakistani) Army had attacked them. Thereafter, the people pushed the police officials back and rescued him. According to the person who rescued him, Tunio crawled out of the car, put mud on the burnt lower part of body and chanted slogans for the freedom of Sindh. The v illagers escorted Tunio on a motorcy cle rickshaw to the hospital in Sanghar. We met constable Bachal Dars and others at the police post. They told us that no one was at the police post at the time of incident because they had been sent by higher-ups to a nearby school where ex aminations were being held. According to them, as soon as they learned about the incident, they informed the station house police officer; howev er, he instructed them to stay in the school. The shopkeepers of the bazaar said no arms were found in the v ehicle. They said it was an assault, not an encounter, because only the armed forces opened fire. The people told us that they contacted the Edhi Foundation for an ambulance, but it reached the scene after 90 minutes. The Edhi Foundation representativ e in Sanghar, Ashraf Hussain, showed us the record carry ing inv oice number 837 7 37 , which said an ambulance (PA 3355) was sent to the location at 3 PM. Area residents also kept calling the police helpline, but police who reached the scene tried to stop the people from rescuing the only surv iv or. On the way back to Sanghar, we ex amined the torched car in the local police station and found at least 24 bullet holes in it; howev er, the v ehicle's compressed natural gas-petroleum cy linder and petrol tank were intact. The police registered case FIR 96/201 1 of April 25 after fiv e day s of incidents. The deputy superintendent of police, Sanghar Ghulam Shabir, said the v ictims were against Pakistan and therefore v ery bad persons. While asked about the police action for identification and detention of the culprits, he said that they had managed to flee. Dr. Abdul Razzaq Leghari of the Sanghar civ il hospital said 60 percent of Tunios body was burned. He also said the arms and leg bones of the persons sitting in the front seats could not be found from their ashes. This created doubts regarding the use of chemicals in the bags thrown upon the v ictims' car. Medico Legal Officer Dr. Shabir Cheema said the way security agencies were pressuring him was indicativ e of their inv olv ement in the assault. Local journalists told us that the news they released was not carried by the country 's mainstream English print and electronic media; howev er, a distorted news story released from the city of Mirpurkhas, some 40 kilometers away , was carried by those outlets. Pakistan's Prime Minister took the notice of the carnage and asked Chief Minister Sindh to order an inquiry . All other political parties demanded a judicial inquiry . No official inquiry has taken place since 201 1 . Finally , Tunio was shifted to Civ il Hospital Karachi on the same day and later on to the Patel Hospital, where he died May 1 , 201 1 . Before his death, he said the ISI and Pakistan Army 's commandos ambushed him and his comrades. The details of the incident portray Pakistan's gov ernment's approach toward political dissent. It also is indicativ e of unnecessary and unlawful use of militarization in Sindh and Balochistan. Worst of all was the silence of Pakistan's human rights ministry .
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Suspicious Details Emerge after Three Men Burned Alive in Pakistan

This was not an isolated incident. Hundreds of such incidents hav e taken place mostly in Sindh and Balochistan in the past three decades. While discussing Pakistan, it is important to note that human rights v iolations there hav e an ex clusiv e peculiarity : state organs and their prox y non-state elements jointly plan and effect heinous crimes against humanity . It is not the legal framework alone that must be changed; it is the nature of statehood and its ethnic chemistry that needs to be altered. No other state like Pakistan has shared its statehood characteristics of legitimacy ov er the use of v iolence with non-state actors. Such non-state actors hav e been known to kidnap and forcibly conv ert Hindu and Christian minority girls as well as to harass these communities through Pakistan's notorious blasphemy law. The trigger-happy state security outfits disappear and ex tra-judicially kill activ ist citizens and use the v irtual means of ethnic cleansing that hav e been adopted in Sindh and Balochistan. This is the time when humanity on globe should think seriously about the 7 0 million Sindhi and Balochistani of Pakistan. The author is a Pakistan-born activist, analyst and researcher living in exile. Tw itter: @shahzulf Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

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