QUETTA: Muhammad Yasir Bugti and 24 other footballers left their mountainous hometown of Sui in Pakistan’s southwestern Dera Bugti district last Saturday to participate in a tournament when armed men with face coverings accosted their vehicle.
Six footballers, residents of Balochistan’s Sui and Dera Bugti areas, who were going to Sibi to participate in the All-Pakistan Chief Minister Gold Cup football tournament, were kidnapped in the incident. Among them was Yasir, 22, passionate about football since his childhood and the youngest of five siblings.
“Since his kidnapping, Yasir’s mother has been crying and falling unconscious due to the intense grief and wanted to see his son alive. His grandfather keeps asking whether Yasir safely reached the football trials but I have nothing to tell him,” Ameer Buksh, Yasir’s father, told Arab News via phone from Sui.
The undated photo shows kidnapped local footballer, Muhammad Yasir Bugti (second left, first row) posing with team mates for a group photo. (Photo courtesy: Ameer Baksh)
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping but Caretaker Federal Minister for Interior Sarfaraz Bugti, who hails from Dera Bugti, has said the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), an outlawed separatist group, was behind the kidnapping. Arab News could not independently verify the claim and the minister did not respond to requests for comment.
Pakistan’s gas-rich Balochistan province, home to Dera Bugti, has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baloch nationalists for around two decades, fighting what they see as the unfair exploitation of the province’s wealth by the federation, which is denied by the Pakistani state.
“Frontier Corps Balochistan [paramilitary force] is tirelessly striving to bring back the abducted football players from Dera Bugti,” the interior minister posted on social media.
The families and tribal leaders of the Bugti tribe in Pakistan’s remote town of Sui staged a rally against the kidnapping of young football players on Monday morning and demanded their immediate recovery.
Families and tribal leaders stage a rally against the kidnapping of six football players on September 11, 2023, in Sui town of Balochistan, Pakistan. (AN photo)
Zakir Hussain, the father of Amir Hussain, 21, another abductee, requested that the government bring back his son.
“The young football players were going to take part in the government’s sports event. The authorities were responsible for their security but since the kidnapping, we haven’t received any cooperation from the government officials.” Hussain told Arab News in a telephone interview from the mountainous Sui town.
Meanwhile, the District Administration in Dera Bugti revealed they had apprehended 14 suspects from the city area, who were now being interrogated.
“Law enforcing agencies have launched search operations in the Zain Koh area of Dera Bugti from yesterday for early and safe recovery of the six locals while the snap- checking by Levis and Police has continued for the last three days,” Deputy Commissioner Dera Bugti, Azhar Shahzad, told Arab News.
Allah Ditta, the elder brother of eighteen-year-old abductee Muhammad Babar, said the family was in shock:
“Babar left the house at 9:30 am on Saturday morning but at 11am we came to know that six local youths were kidnapped and Babar is among them.”
