KARACHI: Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch said on Wednesday that his government would ensure the registration of an FIR for the recovery of a student organisation leader abducted in Quetta in March.

On a visit to meet a protesting Balochistan Student Organisation-Azad (BSO-A) activist, Lateef Johar, who has been on hunger strike outside the Karachi Press Club for the past 37 days, Dr Malik said: “The case of missing persons is the top priority of the government.”

Sitting beside him inside the camp, crowded with reporters, Dr Malik said: “I’m not asking you to end your struggle, but requesting you to call off the hunger strike. To us, you are like other Baloch students.”

Lateef Johar went on hunger strike on April 22 after BSO-A chairman Zahid Baloch was taken away from Satellite Town in Quetta. The student body alleges that intelligence agencies are behind the abduction and demands his release by continuing a hunger strike. Johar’s doctor, who was also present at the camp, informed the chief minister that the student had lost 20 kilograms in the past few weeks.

A student activist and later chairman of the BSO himself, CM Malik tried hard to persuade the student to call off the protest. He was constantly put on the defensive as activists and reporters asked him questions related to the law and order situation in Balochistan and the continuing ‘kill and dump’ policy in strife-torn province.

The students told the chief minister that in case something happened to Johar, they had 13 more students in line to take his place.

Dr Malik said: “I have known Zahid Baloch and worked with him when I was associated with the BSO in the past. We’ve had ideological differences due to which he joined another organisation. I’m requesting you all to help me in my struggle of solving the case of missing persons.”

BSO-Azad student Kareema Baloch, who was sitting right next to Johar, told the media: “It’s been two months since the abduction and yet the SP of Satellite Town, Quetta, refuses to register an FIR of the case. How can we trust that Zahid will not meet the same fate as others who were abducted before him? We’ll hold everyone responsible if something happens to him.”

The CM pledged that his government would take the responsibility of the registration of the case and “will help in any way we possibly can”.

Looking weak, with dark circles under his eyes, Johar was accompanied by activists belonging to the Democratic Students Federation.

In response to CM Malik’s statement, Johar said: “We were given assurances in the past as well. We’ll end our strike the day an official from the intelligence agency admits that our chairman is in their custody and releases him.”

To pacify the students, the CM also signed the petition for the release of the abducted activist. Speaking further on the issue, he said he had been given a “public mandate to bring stability to Balochistan”.

“You have your point of view and I have mine. The need is to sit together and bring our differences to the table and speak them out,” he said.

However, when a reporter asked him whether by signing the petition he, too, had joined the protest camp, Dr Malik got annoyed and abruptly ended the meeting after once again requesting the activist to call off his hunger strike.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2014