QUETTA, May 7: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed deep concern over the continuing disappearance of people, target killings and finding of bullet-riddled bodies in Balochistan and called upon the provincial government to ensure law and order.

Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday, HRCP chairperson Zahra Yousuf said that a fact-finding mission of the commission visited different areas of Balochistan and collected evidence of the alleged involvement of security forces in these incidents. A detailed report of the fact-finding mission would be released soon, she said.

She said the fact-finding mission had observed that a commission set up to investigate the cases of missing persons had been largely ineffective, leading to frustration among people. The mission noted that bodies carried signs of torture and 33 bodies had been found in Khuzdar at a rate of one body every three days.

She condemned the killing of HRCP activists Siddique Eido and Naeem Sabir. Mr Eido went missing in December and his body was found in Ormara on April 28, while Mr Sabir was shot dead in Khuzdar in March.

Ms Yousuf said the mission had observed that the civil administration and elected representatives appeared to have ceded their powers to security forces.

She claimed that there was strong evidence of complicity of security forces in extra-judicial killings and cited a case in which the Frontier Corps personnel killed five men in a house in Turbat while the family members were willing to surrender them.

The HRCP chairperson said the fact-finding mission recommended that enforced disappearances must end because it was a negation of the rule of law that missing persons were not produced before courts of law but their mutilated bodies were found.

Human rights activists Kamran Arif, Dr Mehdi Hasan, Hussain Naqi and Tahir Hussain were present at the press conference.