ISLAMABAD: The Sup­reme Court on Thursday expressed disappointment over incidents like the murder of 20 young labourers looking to cross the border illegally in Turbat and Buleda in Balochistan and wondered as to why the country’s agencies were unaware of such occurrences.

“Are incidents like these a matter of pride for the institutions, agencies and the nation?” Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar asked, while heading a three-judge Supreme Court bench that had taken up a suo motu case about the killing of 20 people, whose bullet-riddled bodies were found in the Turbat and Buleda tehsils of Kech district.

According to media reports, the victims had been brought to Balochistan by human traffickers who intended to send them to Iran by illegally crossing the border. They belonged to various areas of Punjab, including Mandi Bahaud­din, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sialkot and Wah Cantt.

Last month, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed to have arrested seven people from Gujranwala who were allegedly involved in smuggling the 20 young men. Of the seven suspects, four were from Balochistan.

“What is the FIA’s role?” asked the chief justice, wondering why incidents like these happened and if the relevant agencies were unaware.

The court also ordered Balochistan Chief Secretary Aurangzeb Haque and FIA Director General Bahir Memon to present detailed reports on the steps taken to prevent human smuggling and incidents like the killings in Turbat.

Mr Memon claimed that the killings in Turbat were sectarian in nature and were connected to terrorism rather than human-trafficking, however, he conceded that it was hard to pre-empt or control incidents like the one in Turbat because of a lack of resources.

On the other hand, the chief secretary of Balochistan told the court that extremists had been confined to two districts in the province due to the pre-emptive actions taken by agencies, adding that Turbat and Buleda lay in that insecure region.

He informed the court that the authorities had learned about the killings of 15 people on Nov 15, and were able to identify only 11 of them. The news of the murder of five more victims followed on Nov 17, he added.

The case will now be taken up in the first week of February, next year.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2017