Karachi police have registered a kidnapping case against unidentified suspects as it probes the ‘disappearance’ of a student who was allegedly kidnapped from Karachi University (KU), the missing student's family informed Dawn on Wednesday.
According to family members, Sagheer Ahmed Baloch has been missing since November 20. Police have filed the case under Section 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) and Section 34 (common intention) of Pakistan Penal Code against unknown persons on the complaint of the missing student’s sister, Hameeda Baloch.
The complainant told Dawn that her brother was a second-year student in the Political Science Department.
“He went to university on November 20 to take the exam. After taking the exam he was having tea near the Visual Studies Department when several persons showed up in a car and two motorbikes,” Hameeda said while narrating what reportedly happened that day.
“They encircled my brother and his friends,” she said, quoting the friends of her brother, adding that, “Two of them took my brother away.”
“Moments later one person came back and asked for my brother’s bag and took it as well,” Hameeda said.
Following the alleged abduction, the victim’s family approached Mobina Town police station. Though the police were reluctant to file a first information report initially, they later registered the case on December 7.
Hameeda asserted that her brother had "no association with any political or militant organisation in Balochistan".
She said her family hailed from Balochistan but has been living in Karachi for the past five years.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) office-bearer Asad Iqbal Butt told Dawn that they have received an application from the family of the missing KU student.
The HRCP has reportedly raised the issue with United Nations Commission for Enforced Disappearances, Pakistan’s commission on missing persons, Sindh police chief, DG Rangers Sindh and other relevant authorities.
Butt said that sometimes the HRCP received a “typical response” from the relevant authorities that "the missing person was not in their custody", but in the KU student’s case the rights body has not received any response from the authorities yet.
