Uncover - S17: "The Kill List" E5: Living Ghosts

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

We follow Karima’s dramatic return to Balochistan — where even in death, she’s considered a threat. And hear from those in her homeland still willing to risk their lives by speaking out. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/the-kill-list-transcripts-listen-1.6514561

Hey there, I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud. I am the host of Commotion. You know when there's that thing that's like all over your social feeds, or maybe a new movie or a show on Netflix that everyone is talking about, or maybe your favorite artist just dropped a new song or new album. These are the moments when I love to gather the smartest, funniest people together. We get them in the group chat, and then we dig into the culture that is all around us. And Commotion does this every single day. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. The following episode contains difficult subject matter,

including descriptions of violence and torture. Please take care. torture. Please take care. In the days following the discovery of Karima's body in the frigid waters of Toronto Islands, protesters took to the streets of towns and cities throughout Balochistan and also in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. Pakistan's largest city. We want justice! We want justice! We want justice!

We want justice! Holding up handmade signs, one reads, Mr. Justin Trudeau, Baluch demand a thorough investigation. Another, you can't kill an ideology. We want justice! We want justice! We want justice! And then a powerful rallying cry.

I am Karima. You are Karima. We are Karima. She was kind of a beacon of hope for the people of Balochistan. Hena Jelani, a renowned international human rights lawyer. And people did look up to her. She was a local hero. For many Baloch, this young woman was their matriarch. They called her Luma Karima, Mother Karima. Karima felt the weight of that title. Ma Ganj Mahrab, Karima's youngest sister.

When Karima left for Canada, she said that the world didn't come to Baluchistan to see our situation. So with the world not coming, Karima promised she would bring Balochistan to the world. She would become a voice for her people. She said, I'm becoming the voice of my people. Karima also promised to come back to her homeland if needed, but on her own terms. He said, when I feel that my need in Balochistan is more, I will come back for my struggle, not for anything else. He said, Pakistan will never decide when I come back to Balochistan or not.

She said, I will decide. I will decide. Maganj told Karima that when she did come back, thousands would welcome her home. And thousands did, when Karima returned to Pakistan in a wooden box. My name is Mary Link, and this is The Kill List, Episode 5, Living Ghosts. We are all tired, actually, to tell you the truth. Even if you say you expect justice for Karima or what happened to Karima, it's not only Karima.

Our whole society is hostage of this state. Samir Mahrab has always insisted this story is about far more than the tragic deaths in the West of his sister Karima Baluch and his best friend Sajid Hussein. This is not a matter of Sajid and Karima. It's not about them only. It is about thousands of people

who got killed, disappeared, persecuted. It's about the people in Balochistan who are facing tremendous amount of atrocities in hands of Pakistani military. Sajid and Karima are just the extension of this problem. But the world is ignoring it. Absolutely, the world is ignoring it. In other parts of the world, when military persecutes civilians and commits acts of war crimes or extrajudicial killings, they will face sanctions. But the world is completely ignoring it. Pakistani military know that. That's why they can continue. Karima was fighting to bring attention to the cause, first in Balochistan, first in Balochistan, and later in the West.

I'm Karima Baloch. We Baloch have been knocking every door to get justice, but the entire humanity and human rights groups fails to answer. Please raise your voice for the voiceless and oppressed people before it's too late. This is what Karima's life was. This is how she felt, how she lived her life when she was alive.

And without this context, I think it will be very difficult to tell Karima's story. So before we reach the final chapter of Karima's story, before Samir and I receive the Toronto Police Report, we follow Karima home, back to Balochistan to gain that context. What is behind Pakistan's brutal campaign to crush dissent in Balochistan? And who are those still willing to risk their lives by speaking out? Living ghosts. That's the name Amnesty International has called those disappeared at the hands of the Pakistani state.

Sometimes they're killed, sometimes they're released after months or years of torture. Rarely do they talk. And when they come back, the ones that have disappeared and come back, are they mostly silent? Well, they're mentally tortured for a couple of months. They and their family, they refuse to talk with anyone. But after a couple of months, they do talk, but very rarely. Akhtar Mangel, a prominent politician from Balochistan.

I have a man who is going to talk to me who was held for three years and tortured. Well, if he talks, he's really brave. Most of the people, they don't talk. Hi, Mary. Hi. I'm on the phone with Latif Johar, who is in Toronto. He's my translator for the other man on this call, speaking Baluchi. His name is Rafiq, and he's in hiding in Baluchistan. Can you tell him first off that I'm thanking him very much for speaking out and that he's very brave

and that I really appreciate him being part of this. and that he's very brave, and that I really appreciate him being part of this. He said, thank you very much for interviewing me and sharing my experience with the world. Telling his story publicly puts Rafiq in great danger. I ask him why he is willing to take this risk by speaking with me. I feel like it's my moral duty. And whatever I experienced, I knew how bad it was

and how the people right now are kept in those torture cells and being tortured. They have kids, they have wives, and they have a life. So that's why I'm speaking out. So that's why I want the world to know. I know I'm already physically, mentally damaged. If something happened to me, I can accept it. But I have to talk about what was happening with me and what's happening with those in torture cells they cannot speak out.

Is he fearful that he, because he speaks so, that they will take him again? Yes, I'm sure they can take me again wherever they find me. But I want to talk. In 2017, Rafiq had a bad accident. He was riding his bike when he was hit by a tractor. It was serious. He lost an eye, crippled his left leg, and suffered head injuries. It's hard for him to even walk.

Not long after the accident, he left his home in Balochistan and traveled to Karachi for medical treatment. I was staying in my sister's house and some of my friends and classmates they belonged to Baloch student organization.

They were visiting me. So I was also a political activist. I'm affiliated with the Baloch National Movement, the BNM. I'm a peaceful activist. We are just asking for our political rights. Rafiq was well aware of the dangers facing Baloch activists, how easy it is to be disappeared by the military. Everyone in Balochistan thinks that something is going to happen to him or her sometime. But because of my disabilities, because I lost my eye and I couldn't move, so I was

thinking it might save me from being abducted. But it didn't happen and I was abducted, but it didn't happen, and I was abducted. Here's the story Rafiq wants the world to know. It began on a hot day. Rafiq was sitting outside a shop in Karachi with one of his visiting friends, a BSO member. They were chatting away, sipping icy drinks to cool themselves. So we were talking about education. I was discussing, like,

I'm going to take admission at university and continue my education. Then suddenly we saw the vehicles of rangers surrounded us. Rangers, meaning members of Pakistan's military's frontier corps. They began beating Rafiq's friend. Then they went after Rafiq. They all came to me and they circled me and they asked me my name about what I was doing.

And I told them that I was nothing doing. I was a political activist. This is what Rafiq says happened next. He and his friend are blindfolded and thrown into military vehicles, which speed off. Along the way, the rest of the BSO activists who had been visiting Rafiq are also picked up. After nearly an hour of driving, the vehicles stop. Rafiq thinks it could have been a children's playground. He remembers being pulled from the car. They start beating me.

And one guy was standing in front of me. He kicked me at my nose and at my face. Everyone started beating him again? Yes. And that was only the beginning of what was to come. Over months, he says, he's moved from cell to cell, city to city, the torture never ending, and at times almost unimaginable in its cruelty.

Some details I will not share. Some still horrific, I will. Some still horrific. I will. It was like constantly they tortured us. They hanged us upside down. Barely, like my fingers could touch the floor. They beat us. It was continuous. There were bloods all over my body.

It was so bad for me. So it was bad. Were people being killed around him? Yes. There were two cases in Havchoki. Rafiq recalls hearing a body being dragged from a neighboring torture cell. I've heard the soldiers

talking to each other saying, this guy is finished. So finished means killed? Yeah, I mean, they are done. They are expired. Rafiq says his family went to the authorities, demanding, begging that he be released. They didn't acknowledge my abduction. They told my family that they don't know any person named like Rafiq. So they denied it completely. Yeah, they completely denied his abduction.

Was he ever charged with anything? No, I didn't have any charge. They were torturing me and asking me to give the names of the political activists and why I have connection with the members of BSO. And they asked me to help the army,

to help the military, to expose other activists and then they can release me. Otherwise, they're going to kill me like other people they killed previously. Eventually, the constant torture was too much. and very extreme pain. On April 24, 2020, two and a half years after his abduction, Rafiq was dragged by soldiers from his cell and thrown in the trunk of a car. So then they were driving to somewhere

and they were talking to each other to help me, and they were saying where to kill him, here or a little further. I was thinking they were taking me to my death and I was so happy that I'm getting released from this pen. Despite their threats, Rafiq was released, broken but alive. With a warning, he says, not to talk about his abduction and torture. But Rafiq refuses to be silent. At the time of our conversation, it's been about a year since he was released.

What does he hope for his life now? I mean, he's broken in many ways. I mean, he survived, but what does he see for the rest of his life? What hopes does he have for happiness? I'm really depressed. I'm completely hopeless for my happiness. But speaking out against these brutalities, against what Pakistan Army is doing,

and also if someone else internationally or international community and media, so I want the world to speak against Pakistan military. That make me happy only. Pakistan is one of the countries we are very much concerned because we have one of the most enforced disappearances cases in the country. Tha Ambek is chair of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances. The UN defines enforced disappearances in part as the abduction by state authorities of its citizens, followed by the denial of these abductions by the state.

Enforced disappearances are a very unique crime because until you find a person's fate or whereabouts, you cannot even use the criminal law and procedure at all. And so the suffering of those family members and victims of human rights violations is serious. In 1980s, the UN coined the concept of enforced disappearances, and it is considered as an international crime. And Pakistan is one of the top countries with overall number of enforced disappearance cases. And we have been communicating with the government to address this situation. And it is a really unacceptable situation because not only the enforced disappearance itself is heinous,

but also to kind of rely on the absolute kind of impunity really worsened the situation. really worsened the situation. Impunity afforded by those in power in Pakistan aided by a largely silent international community. Well, it is a reality that there is a great deal of ability on the part of the international community to ignore those violations. Agnes Kalamar, the Secretary General of Amnesty International. Before that, she was a UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings. So yes, I think it is dramatic that so many people are dying, so many families are left grieving, and that there is so much indifference on the part of

governments around the world. I mean, it is absolutely pathetic and, you know, beyond being sad. Why is there not more pressure being put on Pakistan to end this? Well, that's a very good question, for which I don't really have an answer, to be perfectly honest. I think it's a mixture of strategic interest, geopolitical motivation, counterterrorism, security issues. I think partly Western governments in particular have very complex relationship with Pakistan, a very troubled relationship with Pakistan.

They may try to hang on to what they can influence or gain from that relationship and not engage with Pakistan over its multiple human rights violations. I think it's important to note that the Pakistani government also mounts quite a vociferous effort, a lobbying effort with Western governments to try and quell any investigations of things that are related to Balochistan. Declan Walsh, the former Pakistan bureau chief for The New York Times. You know, because for countries, Western countries like Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Balochistan is not a major strategic interest.

Declan says human rights abuses in Balochistan have been ignored for far too long. I'm delighted you're doing it. I think it's an important story that's gotten, like, zero coverage. And this lack of attention is demoralizing for those trying to get the world to pay attention, people like Karima and Sajid. You know, I mean, my sense is the point about these, these you know the mystery around some of these people who've died even if some of them have committed suicide i mean they've likely you know that is

if it's not a reflection of an assassination necessarily it could be a reflection of the kind of pressures that these people are under for the work that they've been doing and the toll that it takes on them, especially, you know, when even in Pakistan, nobody's really paying attention, you know. People in Balochistan began disappearing at the hands of the Pakistani military nearly 50 years ago.

According to numbers cited by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tens of thousands have disappeared in Balochistan. Hena Jalani is one of the founders of the commission. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has always tried to hold an exercise of verification and we have come up with numbers eventually after having verified from our own sources and fact findings what these numbers are. You know, I don't count these numbers. Even one enforced disappearance is one too many. It's a crime against humanity under international law.

The majority of those disappeared are the Baloch, followed by the Pashtun. Akhtar Mengel is a member of a well-known political family and comes from a long line of tribal chiefs. In 1972, his father, Atta'u Lamengal, was sworn in as the first chief minister of Balochistan. But nine months later, he was arrested and imprisoned by then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Three years later, Pakistani intelligence agents illegally abducted Akhtar's brother.

We were the first victim of the missing person, my elder brother. He was 19 years old in 1976. He was abducted along with his friend. Assad Mangal had stopped by a home in Karachi to use a telephone. A friend, Ahmad Shah Kurd, was waiting outside in a car for him. He was sitting in that house. All of a sudden, you know, the power went off.

It was hot weather, so he came and sat with his friend in the car. And two cars came, you know, approached. And someone saw it from the roof. Akhtar says a witness watched from a nearby rooftop as Pakistani security forces fired bullets into his brother's car. And the guys from the other cars, they ran and grabbed them and took them away. That's the only thing we knew about it. Then they just disappeared.

All that remained was their blood splattered throughout the car. Despite witnesses, Akhtar says the military denied any involvement. The same thing. Denial. where his grave is. And that is the starting point of enforced disappearance. But to understand what's behind these enforced disappearances, one has to first understand the history of this conflict and the history of Balochistan. In the 18th century, before the British came to Asia, Balochistan was an independent state.

We had our own parliament. Our ruler was Khan of Kalat. He was the ruler, and there was sort of a confederation between the tribes. Akhtar says there are 24 major Baloch tribes, each with their own tribal 24 major Baloch tribes, each with their own tribal leader in Balochistan. Historically, the tribal chiefs were governed by a succession of rulers,

known as the Han of Kalat. The Han's rule began in 1512 and lasted almost five centuries, ending soon after the British lost their colonial hold over the Indian subcontinent. In 1947, when the partition took place between India and Pakistan, Burundi was given a choice to be a part of India, to be part of Pakistan, or to be independent. The resolution was moved in our parliament, and unanimously, parliament has rejected to be part of Pakistan. Pakistan became a state in 1947.

A year later, in March 1948, the Khan of Kalat agreed to the accession of Balochistan into Pakistan, some say through coercion, with several Baloch tribal leaders against the arrangement. But two weeks later, the Pakistani military moved into Balochistan to secure their position. Since the inception of the Pakistani state, these tribes have existed very uneasily inside Pakistan. And it's also a province that has rebelled against the very idea of Pakistan since the inception of the state, pretty much since the late 1940s. They've rebelled against the very idea of Pakistan since the inception of the state, pretty much, since the late 1940s. They've rebelled against the state, you know, every day. This has led to several insurrections involving the Baloch, often small groups of armed guerrillas hiding in the mountains.

And this, in turn, has resulted in more severe crackdowns by Pakistani authorities on all forms of dissent, including peaceful. Akhtar Maingil. This is the fifth military operation that's going on in Balochistan. First one was started in 1948, then 1958, then 60s, 70s. And then things went quiet for about 20 years until the post-2001 period, about 2004-2005, when a dispute erupted between the then military leader of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, and sort of a particularly eccentric but charismatic Baloch tribal leader who started a dispute with the military, ostensibly actually over resources, over the exploitation of gas in his area. But this dispute struck a chord with a lot of other Baloch who were very unhappy with the direction of the province, who were really feeling, really had this strong sense of alienation from Islamabad, from the capital, from the state of Pakistan.

Can you tell me about all the power brokers that are within Balochistan? It is much more than any other part of the country, dominated at the government level by the military and by the sort of institutional concerns of the military. But you have other groups that are also very influential. There is a very active drug trade that runs from Afghanistan, the heroin trade that a lot of the heroin that is produced in southern Afghanistan is smuggled through the deserts of Balochistan and out towards the sea or towards across the border into Iran. And then you have the emergence of these, you know, you have these tribal leaders, or you have these ethnic groups that have sort of dominated Balochistan for many

decades. And the leaders, those traditional, often feudal leaders, also maintain influence in places. And then lastly, you have these Islamist extremist groups that have been growing in strength over the last decade, in particular, I would say. And they occupy this complicated position where on the one hand, part of the Islamists have been supported by the military. In other places, you have the militants, these Islamist militants fighting against the military. So, you know, the lines are not clearly defined always in Balochistan. And in a way, that is a reflection of what a sort of a very, I wouldn't say it's an ungoverned space, even though large parts of it are ungoverned, but it is a very likely

governed place. And it's a place where the normal rule of law, even by the standards of other parts of Pakistan, really doesn't apply. So it's something of a Wild West. Anything goes in parts of Balochistan. And unfortunately, in many places, really it's the rule of the gun that holds sway. To this day, many in Balochistan

do not consider themselves to be Pakistani. The resentment furthered by the military's iron and often ruthless rule over the province. And many, like Akhtar Mengel, seek a peaceful route to greater autonomy, in his case, a political route. Akhtar is a city member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and head of the Balochistan National Party, founded by his father. I ask Akhtar why Pakistani authorities are so adamant about quelling any dissent in the province. Our natural resources have been looted since the 1960s. The area is rich in minerals, but unfortunately we are not the beneficiaries of this wealth.

There are large deposits of copper, oil, gas, many valuable minerals buried under the soil of this otherwise desolate part of Pakistan. And, you know, for whoever manages to exploit them can certainly make a lot of money in the future. And there are foreign resource companies from China, from Canada, from Australia, who have already started to exploit it. A big player in Balochistan is Canada's Barrick Gold. The company is involved in a project to mine one of the world's largest undeveloped copper and gold deposits.

The site is located in northwestern Balochistan. Barrick Gold and its partners are investing 10 billion US dollars. Even though the government of Balochistan has been promised a stake in the project, the venture has faced backlash from some Baloch who argue that little benefit will trickle down to the average person. They say the same about China's US$62 billion infrastructure project in Pakistan.

It's called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC. With much of this happening in Balochistan, it's one of the most ambitious projects of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. Considered exploitative by Baloch nationalists, but key to military interests, says Declan Walsh. So the military is a staunch supporter for many different reasons, for strategic reasons, as well as for economic ones, of the relationship with China. of the relationship with China. What's also important to know is that the Pakistani military controls a massive financial empire.

In fact, the military is the largest business conglomerate in all of Pakistan, owning approximately 50 major companies and commercial ventures. They've established a huge empire, and this is back of an envelope calculation, you know, with a net worth of $25 to $30 billion. Ayesha Siddiqui is an acclaimed Pakistani author and political scientist. One of her books, Military Inc., details the Pakistan military's vast business interests. So they're into manufacturing industry.

So they make cement, they make cereals, they're into agriculture, and then there is an aviation company. They're into education, they're into oil and gas, roads, construction, real estate, private security. So every major sector, the military is present. So what do they do with all this money? Are people, individuals profiting themselves? Are the generals profiting from all this money? Where is it going, the money from all this businesses? It's, well, it's generals profiting in some cases, but it's also, you know, organizationally, they're distributed. I mean,

they're very hierarchical and they're very organized that way. You know, the dividends, they will distribute it amongst their soldiers, amongst their stakeholders. They even run a bank, by the way. But I think the more important thing is that it gives them this confidence of being independent of the state itself. I mean, they have their own economy. They don't have to depend on the government for their extra benefits, for the extra perks. They can give jobs to men who retire. It's a whole array of perks and privileges where they've generated for themselves. And it's common knowledge that without military backing, political leaders in Pakistan have trouble getting into power and holding on to it. I mean, my argument follows that

a politically active military, if it gets involved in commercial ventures, then it gives it a greater reason to sustain its power. And successive governments in Pakistan have allowed military to benefit, to run their businesses as a sweetener. But that's the most dangerous tool to use. This is not a sweetener. This is a death knell for politics, for the rest of the nation. I asked Declan what this means specifically for Balochistan. Well, it's often hard to divide the military from large business interests because the military, of course, in this province is really the ruling power. I mean, there is a regional government and there are significant local power brokers. But in the running of Balochistan, it's largely the security establishment that dictates how things work. So you can imagine that in a scenario in which the exploitation of Balochistan's resources can actually really start in earnest, you could see a significant windfall for the

military or for its proxies. Balochistan also has great strategic importance to the military. Balochistan is a sprawling province that's very sparsely populated, yet incredibly strategically located between Iran and Afghanistan. As I discovered in my research, there are some important nuclear installations there, parts of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program that are sort of hidden inside mountains in the most remote parts of the province. And so this combination of strategic stakes, potentially great mineral wealth that is buried under the soil there, and a kind of institutional prejudice against the demands of Baloch nationalists

have really combined, I think, to make it a part of Pakistan that the authorities are very sensitive about. And the brutal act of enforced disappearances is one of the military's favorite cudgels. Its ripple effects are meant to silence an entire population. The disappeared really is, I think, a function of two things. Partly you have the Pakistani military, which is facing this foe that is deeply embedded in the community that surrounds the military bases in Balochistan. It's a classic insurgency, really, which is very hard to fight because, you know, it's very hard

to identify who is a Baloch nationalist, who is an armed Baloch nationalist. And so the only way the Pakistani military, the way that they have chosen to fight it really, is to try and go after people who they think are sympathizers. And so the military started using its intelligence and its military presence on the ground to identify people who it thought were not just fighters, but also sympathizers with the Baloch cause. A key concern of the military, says Declan, is a contagion effect of separatist sentiment to other parts of this relatively young country. While the Baloch have probably been the most rebellious, if you like, part of Pakistan since the country was formed in the 40s, there are certainly nationalist or regional groups in pretty much all of the provinces, to some degree with the exception of Punjab,

but certainly in Sindh, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the northern mountain areas. And so the Pakistani military, which is largely dominated by officers from the Punjab, which is the most populous part and the richest and most influential part of Pakistan, these military officers don't want to see, you know, a Baloch insurgency if you like providing any sort of inspiration to people from these other provinces who might also start to create trouble or to create more trouble for the state. And the Pakistani military has made it clear that it not only seeks to try to defeat this insurgency militarily, but it also wants to silence it inside the country. The military has made it clear to the national media in Pakistan

that it does not appreciate a lot of coverage about what's been going on in Balochistan. So it's largely unseen to a lot of other Pakistanis as well. and Balochistan. So it's largely unseen to a lot of other Pakistanis as well. In fact, after nine years in Pakistan, working for The Guardian and The New York Times, Declan was expelled from the country. He says sources later told him it was for his reporting on Balochistan, which was getting under the skin of the Pakistani authorities. To sidestep the government's crackdown on reporting stories about Balochistan, Baloch activists have turned to posting news on social media, in particular Twitter. Because the Baloch are so shut out of the national conversation in Pakistan,

they've resorted to posting these really gruesome photographs of people whose bodies have turned up dead on the side of the road as a way of trying to publicise their cause. So on social media, I frequently receive a lot of these pretty disturbing images showing, you know, ravaged corpses, people with signs of terrible injuries who've been, you know, not just beaten or shot, but also drilled or electrocuted or otherwise mutilated. Horrific injuries. or electrocuted or otherwise mutilated.

Horrific injuries. And for the Baloch, this has become their way of trying to shout in desperation for some attention to what's happening to them. The problem is that not many people seem to be listening. And the enforced disappearances continue. I think that the most heart-rending cases as ever are those people who have not found the bodies, who know that the great likelihood is that they are dead,

but they haven't recovered their remains. And so the anguish and the torture for these people continues. And they are appealing to the authorities to at the very least give them some closure. 36 years ago, after Assad Mangal became one of the first to disappear, his family was still in the dark about what had happened to him. They didn't even know if Assad had been killed when his car was shot up or had been taken alive. The closure, if you can even call it that, happened in a surreal and almost casual way

when Akhtar Mangel was appearing on a TV program. That's when another guest, a former head of the ISI, Pakistan's formidable intelligence agency, began talking about his brother. The ISI General Hamid Gul, he admitted himself that he was brought to one of the military camps, and he was tortured and he was killed. In an interview

along with me. You were there at the time when he was saying this? Yeah, I was there in a television talk show. He said this. That time when he was talking, he was not in armed forces, he was retired. Obviously, when they come out of the forces, then they tell the truth. But I wish he could have said this when he was in service.

That must have been devastating to hear. We are not used to it. I mean, I think that hardly any home left in Balustan where there's no missing person. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs.

And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. I want to ask you a difficult question, Sami. In your heart, do you think your father is still alive? I still believe that my father is alive. I still believe that my father is alive. Sami Baluch is one of the many in Baluchistan whose loved ones remain missing.

In her case, the military abducted her father, Dr. Dean Muhammad. Because his body has not been found, she still holds out hope that he's alive in one of the many Pakistani military detention cells. So you can see that this hope is giving me power, giving me courage to move on, to struggle for the safe recovery of my father. If I cannot count my father in alive, I would have sat in my home, but I can see hope that my father is alive

and I will found him. I will do my best to release him as much as I can do. Sami's father became a member of the Disappeared in 2009. When she and I spoke, he'd been missing for more than 12 years. Sometimes the bodies of those abducted are never retrieved, discarded in a secret location by the military, or the captives are kept alive for years, tortured in undisclosed locations, with the military denying their detention,

not knowing if they're dead or alive is a kind of hell for their families. My family, we have been suffering. Every day is torturous for us. Every time. When we sleep, the people of my house, my sister, my mother, we wake up like crazy people that whose message is this? Is it a news about our father? Is it related to our father? How is he? Are we having a news of his release? Are we having a news of his being dead? This 12 years have been spent in this trauma, in this tragedy, in these sufferings. If someone becomes dead, that the people know that they will satisfy on this, that he will never come back.

But we have spent our 12 years in this, that when our father will come back, will he ever come back or not? Should we wait for him or not? Are we orph back or not? Should we wait for him or not? Are we orphans or not? Sami says up until a few years ago, she had been receiving word from former detainees that her father was still alive. Till 2015, we have found some people who said that they have seen my father, that they have met my father in the torture cells. But since 2015, she's received no further word of sightings of her father. Still, she continues to hope.

Sami was only 11 when she last saw her father, but remembers those last moments with him vividly. Sami was in hospital, recovering from tonsil surgery. Her father was visiting at her bedside when his cell phone rang. It was someone on the line calling from another hospital, the one where he worked as a doctor. He said that my hospital, they are calling me that there is some urgent thing. You have to leave your daughter in hospital and come to your job. So he left me in hospital. So in that last time, I cried with him that you are leaving me.

And he promised with me that he will be back in two days. I hugged him and he kissed on my forehead and assured me that he will come in two days. But the second day we have received the news that he has been kidnapped. So these last memories are still in my mind. Sami says her father's disappearance was due to his activism. He was a political activist.

He started asking, he started talking about the justice, about the people's right, that why the people of Balochistan are deprived of everything. They are not even getting good hospitals. They are not even getting good education system. So my father was one of them

who was just asking for right for the people of Balochistan. As Sami grew up, she began asking the same questions. And demanding the release of her father and the thousands like him. If our people did something, then we have made our justice for them. Sami often travels to larger cities in Pakistan

as part of her activism work against enforced disappearances and to draw attention to her father's case. I am a girl. I am 22 years old. I travel alone in this country, in Pakistan, where girls, when they get out of their homes, they become harassed. And I travel alone from Quetta to Karachi to attend the hearings. And I have been to the courts, to the commissions. In 2014, she and a small group of mostly women and children

walked more than 2,000 kilometers to Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, one of the Baloch Long Marches, a form of protest inspired by Gandhi. by Gandhi. Hoping to get justice, these family members of missing persons in Balochistan are walking on foot to wake up the world about atrocities being committed.

In the years that followed, Sami continued her activism, and by early 2021, she was in the capital again. She was part of a sit-in near the parliament building and the residence of then Prime Minister Imran Khan. Recently, we have been to Islamabad, where we sat for 10 days. The protesters were refusing to move until they were granted a meeting with Khan. And a month after the sit-in, Khan met with three of them, including Sammi.

So he said, as a prime minister of this country, as the prime minister of Pakistan, these are my words to you. You are like a daughter to me. These are my words to you that I will do my best to find your father, to release your father. But when we got out from the house, from the prime minister house, they are even not contacting with us.

They are not replying our messages. They are not receiving our calls. This is not the first time Khan promised to address the issue of enforced disappearances. When he was campaigning to be prime minister, he promised to end the practice. Akhtar Mangal took him at his word. So much so, Akhtar's Balochistan National Party joined the coalition that allowed Khan's PTI party to take power in 2018. We had a sort of, you know, agreement with the PTI government, Imran Khan's government. We supported them in that condition.

All the missing persons who've been abducted, they've been released. If they've been killed, their family should be informed and where they've been buried. From 2018 to 2020, Akhtar says some were released. Which might sound hopeful, if not for a major caveat. So in June 2020, because of the Prime Minister's broken promise, Akhtar ended his parliamentary alliance with Khan. And more and more people kept disappearing in Balochistan. You know, the list is not stopped, so I can't give you a sure number because it's going up every day.

I read Imran Khan's, his autobiography. I read Imran Khan's autobiography, and he wrote that he was talking about how he was one of the first people to lead a demonstration on behalf of families of missing persons outside parliament in 2003. And he talks about being a champion of the cause. What happened? Well, Mary, I can only say that Imran Khan is missing. He's no more. Now the Imran Khan you see is different. When he was in opposition, I used to be very close to him. We used to have a meeting, we used to have a public gathering, and that Imran Khan is no more. In the spring of 2021, I was trying to track down another leading politician from Balochistan, Senator Usman Khan Kakar. But before I could reach him, it was too late. In the past, he had spoken in the National Assembly about the harassment of Karima by the Pakistani state and concerns she was murdered in Canada. On March 10th, 2021, Senator Kakkar, who was Pashtun,

gave his last speech before retirement on the floor of the parliament. And it was because of that speech I wanted to talk to him. In it, the senator directly condemns the continued practice of enforced disappearances and says speaking out about this should not be a death sentence. be a death sentence. Abductions of people and recovery of mutilated dead bodies are still not stopped. It will continue in the future,

which is wrong and illegal. Kakar was deeply admired by many in Balochistan for his defiant criticism of those in power. But in his last speech, the politician makes clear his life is in danger because of it. If something happens to me, it doesn't matter. I'm not worried about my life. But I want to bring on the record that two intelligence agencies will be responsible. You are my witnesses.

Something did happen to Senator Kakar two months after that speech, before I had the chance to speak with him. He was found unconscious lying in the drawing room. Kushal Khan is the senator's 26-year-old son. On June 7, 2021, his father was found by his family lying on a carpet in the drawing room of their home in Kuwait. The 59-year-old had severe

head injuries and was barely alive. Four days later, he died in hospital. My conversation with Kushal takes place seven days after his father's death. And we were expecting this will happen one day with him. Based on information they've gathered, Kushal says the family believes that three or four

men attacked his father when he was alone at his house. Kushal says he was told his father was hit hard, that his injuries would be more in line with a violent attack than a fall. And Kusel, what are the authorities saying about this? Are they investigating his death? Actually, they were not investigating, and they called a press conference, and they accused that he was not hit by someone. It was natural that he slipped and hit on his head. Yeah, that he slipped in the bathroom. Yeah, he slipped in the bathroom. But he was found unconscious in the drying room, not in the bathroom. So after a lot of pressure, they contacted us and they told us that they were forming a commission,

judicial commission, to inquire the facts and figures of the death of my father. Kushal has little faith the commission is committed to finding out what really happened to his father. He says everything is pointing to assassination. You can see that in his last speech, he mentioned the two agencies of Pakistan. If I am ever killed or I died, I will be killed by these two agencies, these two authorities. And the two authorities are what?

That's obvious to anyone, any person in this country, who these two authorities are. But can you say, because this is for an international audience, who they are? Yeah, I can say that it's ISI and MI. ISI and MI. ISI and MI, two intelligence arms of the Pakistani military.

No one has been charged or convicted in the death of Usman Kakar. The commission to investigate his death ended shortly after it was convened without any conclusion. The plane carrying Karima's body arrived at Pakistani's Karachi airport in the early hours of January 24, 2021. Her family was there, waiting. Karima's sister Maganj says the area was a sea of Frontier Corps rangers and police. When we got to the airport, it seems like it's a war zone because they are here at the and a very large number of rangers, police. Maganj says soon after the plane landed, the military confiscated Karima's body.

They want to bury her in their custody. The family fought back, arguing it was not the military's right. After several hours, the military relented and turned over Karima to her family. And when we received the body, the agencies clapped together and said now they have seen our power. For the 13-hour car ride back to Balochistan, military and police vehicles surrounded the family's cars and the ambulance carrying Karima. They also barred other mourners from joining the convoy. They said, no, we don't want the Baluch activists to join the convoy. And many who had walked miles to stand along the road,

hoping to pay their respects, were told by the military to leave and go home. Looking out her car window, Maganj says she witnessed soldiers assaulting those who remained lining the streets. When they arrived in their hometown at night, McGunge says it looked like it was under siege by the Frontier Corps who had imposed a curfew. FC soldiers surrounded the neighborhood, and ISI officials demanded that Karima be buried right away. The agency said that we want her to bury it tonight, but I said I don't want to hand her to you. We want to see her. We didn't see her the last five years, and they said no.

We dug a grave for her already. The family refused to bury her in the military's grave and Karima was moved by relatives to her old bedroom in her home. We keep the box in our own room and I locked the room and stayed with her. Female family members stood guard at the door. Maganj alone sat vigil all night in the room so for one last time she could be with the sister that for five years she had desperately longed for, who had promised to call her back before she disappeared. She always, my name is Mahganj, its meaning is moon. She always said to me, you are my moon, when you are are not here I miss you so much she was a person full of love

she was very optimistic when things are going very very worse she was the one who brings hope when there was a group of people upset people she was the only one to bring smile on the other people face. I think she was the finest in our old Balochistan. I'm not saying this because she was my sister. Because I see her very personally. She was very loyal to anyone. She was a very soft heart. She always said, why the world cannot be a better place?

On the day of her burial, as is tradition, several men were preparing to carry Karima to the gravesite. But her family says the military would not let them. Instead, it was women who did this task. But rather than taking this as a slight, the family said it was fitting that Karima, who had long battled for women's rights, would have wanted it this way. would have wanted it this way. But just before her body was lowered, an ISI agent approached Maganj with a flag.

The ISI officer came to me and said, I will give you a flag. You lay the flag on our box. The flag of Pakistan. Maganj says the ISI officer then told her to make a video saying Karima supported the state of Pakistan. Baganj says the ISI officer then told her to make a video saying Karima supported the state of Pakistan. They don't have any shame. Like, I lost my sister. I said, no, I will never do this

because she gave our life for people facing the injustice, people suffering too much. She want freedom for Balochistan. She was not Pakistan's daughter. Karima had told Maganj if she were to die, she wanted to be buried in the flag of the Baloch Students' Organization, the influential activist group she had once chaired, the first woman in nearly 50 years to hold that position. So Maganj had brought a BSO flag all the way from Karachi to lay over her sister. The military objected and grabbed it from her. Defiant, Maganj stitched together a red shawl and a piece of Karima's white shroud reflecting the colors of the BSO flag and laid it over her sister.

And that is how Karima entered the earth of her beloved Baluchistan, on her own terms. For more than a year, I've gathered as much information as I could about Karima, but I was still at a loss. I wasn't much closer to understanding how she died. There was still one key piece of the puzzle missing, the Toronto police report. A year after her death, the family agrees to file a request for a copy, which they plan to share with me. At the end of January,

Samir tells me he has the report. And what I read in its pages, where it will lead me, shakes me to my core. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for an interview to discuss the allegations against the state that have been reported in this series. The Kill List is created by me, Mary Link, and written and produced along with Alina Ghosh. Mixing and sound design by Julia Whitman. Studio direction by Nancy Regan.

Our story editor is Chris Oak. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu. Legal advice from Sean Mormon. Special thanks to Latif Johar. Our senior producer is Cecil Fernandez. And the director of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. If anything you've heard in this series has left you looking for someone to talk to,

please visit cbc.ca slash tklresources. Thank you for listening.