Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah slammed the police for conducting violence on students from Balochistan who were holding a peaceful protest against the alleged enforced disappearance of their fellow student Hafeez Baloch and called the police attitude a 'hangover from the colonial times.'
Chief Justice Minallah wrote an order that suppressing voices of dissent or discouraging raising of grievances against the state amounted to sedition.
Earlier, Islamabad Police on Tuesday clashed with Baloch students protesting for the release of missing students. According to students, plain-clothed officials snatched their mobile phones and dismantled the protest camp. Students activists said that the peaceful protesters were unnecessarily manhandled and beaten by the Police.
The IHC chief justice has done the right thing by chastising the local police and administration officials and reminding them that their constitutional duty is to protect the rights of citizens, reported Dawn.
This state's high-handedness will continue to persist unless reforms truly take place. There is a culture that perpetuates in Pakistan where the role of the state is that of a predator and not a protector, reported the newspaper.
The courts are doing well to balance this by enforcing the rights of citizens. Moreover, Balochistan's Human Development Index (HDI) ranks below 0.40 as compared to the other provinces of Pakistan that lie above 0.50. Within Pakistan, Balochistan lags far behind other provinces and 15 out of Pakistan's least-developed districts are in Balochistan.
Meanwhile, enforced disappearances and arbitrary killings of Balochs have also become a new 'normal in the region'.
( With inputs from ANI )
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