WASHINGTON, Feb 12: Human rights violations in Balochistan cannot be swept under the carpet as an internal issue, says Ali Dayan Hassan, the Pakistan director for a US-based rights groups who appeared before a congressional panel in Washington last week to highlight the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country’s largest but remote province.

“Human rights abuses come under a universal jurisdiction. A torturer can be held responsible anywhere in the world,” he told a group of Pakistani journalists near Washington on Saturday night.

Mr Hassan and his group, the Human Rights Watch, are being criticised in Pakistan for appearing in a hearing where US lawmakers supported the demand for an independent Balochistan, carved out of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Mr Hassan rejected such criticism as ‘unjust’, pointing out that his group “takes no position on the issue of independence” and acknowledges that “Balochistan is internationally recognised as a province of Pakistan.”