Pakistan: Awami National Party demands probe into murder of party leader
Mar 01, 2021
Peshawar [Pakistan], March 1 : Pakistan's Awami National Party (ANP) has condemned the murder of its Balochistan secretary information Asad Khan Achakzai and announced that it will observe three-day mourning to press the Imran Khan government for the arrest of the killers.
Asad Achakzai's bullet-riddled body was recovered from the Killi Nosahar area in Quetta on Saturday. He had gone missing in September last year, Dawn reported.
ANP president Asfandyar Wali Khan issued a statement on Saturday demanding a probe into the murder of the party's provincial spokesperson. "ANP held protest rallies and sought help from judiciary through a petition in the Balochistan High Court, but to no avail," ANP chief said, as quoted by Dawn.
Later on Sunday, a funeral prayer for the slain ANP leader was held in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Chitral District.
"ANP Balochistan spokesperson Asad Achakzai's funeral prayers were offered in absentia at the district secretariat under the auspices of Awami National Party Chitral District," ANP tweeted (in Arabic).
While addressing the rally in Charsadda, ANP provincial president Aimal Wali Khan last week had said that the "mothers and sisters of missing persons were wandering on roads but nobody gave heed to their requests".
He pointed that according to the available data over 6,000 people are missing across the country, of which 23 were forcibly disappeared in January.
Enforced disappearances have been a long stain on Pakistan's human rights record. Despite the pledges of successive governments to criminalise the practice, there has been a very slow movement on legislation, while people continue to be forcibly disappeared with impunity.
