By Ateet Sharma
New Delhi, Feb 16 (IANS): The likelihood of either thing happening remains zero even though the protest venue has seen some high-profile visitors in the recent days, including many Pashtun activists like Afrasiab Khattak, Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Manzoor Pashteen, human rights defender Amina Masood Janjua and some more.
The Balochs have for long argued that their missing loved ones - most of them vocal critics of the Pakistani deep state - are actually in the illegal custody of Pakistani intelligence agencies and are dying a slow death in the jails of country.
The Human Rights Council of Balochistan has reported that more than 32 people were killed and over two dozen disappeared, most of them forcibly, in Balochistan in the first month of 2021.
In Karachi, the Sindhi community, itself bearing the brunt of Pakistani establishment, has shown solidarity with the Balochs camping outside the local Press Club for over 12 years.
Lawyers from the Sindh Bar Council recently visited the camp to express their solidarity with the families of the Baloch missing persons.
The Jeay Sindh Freedom Movement (JSFM), meanwhile, has also accused the Pakistani government of moving outsiders into the province, turning the original inhabitants into minority in their own motherland.
"Pakistan is planning to bring Kashmiri refugees in Sindh. The Punjabi establishment has issued a letter to Sindh government to provide details of agricultural and residential land owned by Sindh government to bring more outsiders to Sindh for permanent settlement while the original inhabitants of Sindh are living miserable life below poverty line," says JSFM founder Zafar Sahito.
He said that thousand hectares of land and islands of Sindh have already been sold to China for the projects of China Pakistan Economic Corridior (CPEC).
"Foreign nationals are not only creating economic burden on locals but Sindh is fast becoming a hub of terrorist groups and various radical Islamist organizations. With the help of Pakistani agencies, these groups are threatening the local Sindhi community which has already suffered a lot," he added.
Clearly, the envisioned state of Medina in Pakistan is making no progress.