PRESS RELEASE

PILER condemns murder of Prof. Dashtiyari; demands high-powered commission of enquiry

KARACHI, June 3: Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) has strongly condemned the murder of noted scholar and Professor Saba Dashtiyari in Quetta and demanded immediate formation of a high-powered commission of inquiry.

In a statement issued here on Friday Karamat Ali, Executive Director of PILER and B.M.Kutty, Secretary Managing Board of PILER said the inquiry commission should consist of retired judges of impeccable integrity with a mandate to go into all the gory details of the planning and execution of this dastardly murder and expose the culprits, irrespective of who they are and in whatever position they may be.

“Otherwise, the whole Pakistani nation will stand accused of the murder of Professor Dashtiyari,” the statement added.

They expressed profound sympathies with all the near and dear ones of the late Professor and also affirmed their solidarity with the people of Baluchistan who are going through a seemingly endless phase of denial, deprivation and neglect by the Pakistani state, with all its horrifying consequences for the future of the multinational federation of Pakistan.

“Coming so soon after the shocking incident of kidnapping, brutal torture and murder of senior journalist Saleem Shehzad, one is short of words to express the sense of outrage and horror at the assassination in Quetta of Prof. Dashtiyari,” the statement said.

A man who rose from the slums of Karachi ’s perennially unfortunate Lyari area to become one of the most outstanding and widely respected exponents of modern Baluchi literature and a widely respected and popular academic, associated with the Baluchistan University for more than three decades, Prof. Dashtiyari was also a symbol of progressive, liberal political ideas and a man with a firm commitment to the cause of unfettered freedom of expression and social justice.

“By physically eliminating a man of Dashtiyari’s intellectual and social stature, the assassins have in fact only served to further inflame the Baluch, particularly the politically sensitized youth of Baluchistan, and to further deepen their sense of alienation from Pakistan’s political and social mainstream,” the PILER leaders said.

As an institution engaged in promoting the rights of the working class through education, training and research, PILER considers the dastardly murder of such a celebrated icon of education for all, especially for the marginalized and oppressed sections of society, as an attack on all the cherished values of a civilized society, the statement added.

Ends

Released by
Shujauddin Qureshi
Senior Research Associate
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER),
Gulshan-e-Maymar, Karachi-75340