The mysterious missing of Abdul Wahab Baloch, a Baloch political activist of Karachi, and his release after some days shows that Disappearance and torture continue despite new democratic government.

The disappearance of Abdul Wahab Bloch is the first recorded case of disappearance after arrest during the newly elected government of Pakistan People’s Party. But according to the reports collected by human rightist organizations and Baloch nationalist parties, dozens of persons disappeared after arrests by law enforcement agencies, after the general elections of February 2008.

The newly formed democratic government of Pakistan particularly, the Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani have still not mentioned about the fate of disappeared persons after their arrests by the state intelligence agencies. The issue of the disappearances was one of the main issues which caused the dismissal of the deposed Chief Justice and whole higher judiciary by the former military rulers. The state agencies are still operating freely to arrest any one with out any legal authority and keeping persons incommunicado for several months during which time they are tortured.

We, on behalf of civil society and human rights organization, demand the newly formed government of PPP especially Primer Minister Syed Yousaf Reza Gilani to investigate the case of Abdul Wahab Baloch and other missing persons and to start investigations into those statements made before the courts by the persons who were kept for several months in the custody of the army and who were tortured for confessions associating them with underground terrorist outfits. Also we demand the government to ratify ’The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance’.