Sindhis expressed concern over killings of political leaders by the security agencies.

Enforced disappearances, torture and killing of locals in Sindh by the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies is a major concern, political activists from the Pakistani province said here on Friday and asked the United Nations to send a fact-finding mission there to expose the state brutalities. At an event, titled “Human Rights Violations in Sindh”, held on the sidelines of the 40th Session of UN Human Rights Session here in Geneva, the Sindhis expressed deep concern over destruction of Sindhi culture and killings of political leaders by the security agencies.

Lakhu Luhana, the Secretary-General of World Sindhi Congress said, the Pakistani security agencies have completely destroyed and destabilised Sindh which is historically rich, cultured and well settled. He said there is widespread poverty, disease, displacement, malnutrition and deaths in Sindh and “those who raise their voice go missing”.

To justify his point, he played a video of a 16-year-old Sindhi man from Karachi who was forcibly picked up by the security agencies without any fault. “It is a sorry state of affairs in Sindh...We have been talking about this for years but there is no reprieve,” Luhana said.

Giving details, he said violence is perpetrated against religious minorities. “Pakistan should be pressurized to stop these atrocities, to release all the missing people, to dismantle all the networks of terror that they have unleashed in Sindh,” the activist said.

He said the resources of Sindh are being exploited by the Pakistani establishment whereas the youth in the province are jobless. “At present, 72 per cent of gas in Pakistan comes from Sindh but only 11 per cent of Sindhi people are employed... The highest suicide rate is in Sindh. In the last 13 days of March alone, there have been three suicides. So, this is just an indication about how they have deprived this,” Luhana said.

He demanded that a fact-finding mission from the United Nations should analyse the grim situation in Sindh. “The United Nations should send a fact-finding mission to Sindh... It (mission) should investigate. They (UN) should put pressure on Pakistan and if Pakistan does not comply with those findings, they should bar Pakistan from the United Nations. They don’t have the right to commit the crimes and still sit in the (UN) Human Rights Council,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies.)