ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government was holding talks in Islamabad with dozens of rights activists from Pakistan's Balochistan province who had been demanding an "end to rights abuses" in the country's restive southwestern region, an official said on Sunday.
The activists, led by 30-year-old Dr. Mahrang Baloch, marched 1,600 kilometers to the Pakistani capital from the southwestern Turbat district, where a 24-year-old man, Balach Baloch, was killed in the custody of the provincial Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) last month.
The CTD says the deceased had links with militants and was involved in a number of attacks in the region, but his family and civil society activists deny the CTD claim and describe it as a case of "extrajudicial murder."
The protesters, who have been staging a sit-in outside the Islamabad Press Club, call for disbanding the CTD in Balochistan, the release of all "missing persons" as well as freeing their fellows who were arrested after clashes with police this week.
"The committee, formed by the prime minister, is holding talks with the protesters. Every Pakistani has a right to peaceful protest," Interior Secretary Aftab Akbar Durrani said in a statement.
"On the instructions of the prime minister, it has been ensured that the protestors may not have to face any kind of violence or harassment."
Durrani, however, warned that no one would be allowed to violate the law.
Political leaders, human rights activists and families of victims have for decades spoken against killings in Balochistan by security agencies in what they call staged encounters, a practice where officials claim the victims were killed in a gunfight though they were summarily executed.
Authorities deny involvement in such incidents.
Meanwhile, the Islamabad police announced that the arrested protesters were being released after being granted bail.
"The protestors has asked the committee formed by the caretaker prime minister of Pakistan and the governor of Balochistan for the release of the arrested persons," the police said on X.
"Keeping in view the legal requirements, the bails of the arrested protesters have been approved. Arrested protesters are being released."
Balochistan, which shares a porous border with Iran and Afghanistan, has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baloch nationalists for around two decades.
The separatists say they are fighting what they see as the unfair exploitation of the province’s wealth by the federation. The Pakistani state denies it.
