By Qurratulain Zaman
Brutal rule by Pakistan’s security agencies in Balochistan has radicalised moderate Balochs in this largest and poorest province. Now Pakistan’s government has offered a conciliation package. But it looks as if it is too little, too late.
“They ordered me to rape her. She was so thin and was crying when they brought her in the room. I was terrified to look at her, as I thought she was a spy or an agent”, says Munir Mengal, a 33- year- old Baloch, living in forced exile in Paris.
Munir Mengal spent 16 months in underground jails of the Pakistani intelligence agencies. “The low rank officers came back to the room and started beating me because I didn’t obey their orders. They took off my clothes by force, and hers too, and left us alone. In her sobs I heard her praying in Balochi language. She was praying for someone named Murad. That’s how I got to know she is my fellow Baloch. That gave me the courage to talk to her.” Munir says that, still sobbing, she told him her name was Zarina Marri. She used to be a school teacher. She and her son Murad, who was only a few months old, were picked up by the intelligence agencies from Kohlu.
Munir said, “Zarina was crying and asking me to kill her. Meanwhile, 3 or 4 low-ranking officers came in the room with a toolbox and told me that if I refused to rape her they would make me impotent. I didn’t have a clue why they were doing this to me. I fainted. In the morning, before the faj’r prayer they kicked me and took Zarina Marri with them. I have no idea what happened to her.”
Munir said he was tortured physically, mentally and emotionally every day. A chartered accountant by education and training, Munir wanted to open up a Baloch TV channel in Pakistan. He was working on his TV channel “Baloch Voice”, when he was picked up for the first time when he flew into Karachi international airport on April 4, 2006.
(Qurratulain Zam is a journalist who has worked with Pakistan’s leading daily “Daily Times” and Germany’s international broadcaster “Deutsche Welle”. She is currently working as a freelancer in Bonn, Germany“)
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