Clinton asked to give information of missing Baloch leader

An American lawmaker has asked Clinton to provide information about the missing Baloch leader alleging that it might be kidnapped by Pak agents.

Washington: A key American lawmaker has asked the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to provide information about the missing Baloch leader alleging that it might be kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence agents.

In a letter, released to the press on Monday, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher asked Clinton to provide his office with information related to the case of a missing Baluch Zakir Majeed, vice-chairman of the Baluch Student Organization, who was abducted on June 2009.

Rohrabacher in his letter alleged that Majeed was likely kidnapped by agents of Pakistani intelligence.

"I ask the State Department provide my office with all information about the kidnapping and kidnappers of Mr Majeed," said the Congressman, who is Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee which held a hearing on Baluchistan on February 8, 2012.

Human rights groups have recorded hundreds of cases of ethnic Baluch men disappearing or being killed by Pakistan`s security forces.

The Pakistani government uses kidnapping and murder to repress Baluch who express a desire for autonomy, the Congressman alleged in his statement.

Earlier this year, Rohrabacher raised the case of British citizen Noordin Mengal, who was the delegate to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization for Baluchistan, and was denied entry to the United States by the Department of Homeland Security.

At the time, Rohrabacher wrote to Secretary Napolitano that the US Government needs to "end its partnership with the ISI in repressing the Baluchi people. We must allow eligible Baluchi leaders to come to the US ... The people of Baluchistan are not the enemy of the US; they are our allies in the region. "

Rohrabacher, together with Congressmen Steve King and Louie Gohmert, introduced legislation on February 17, 2012 expressing the sense of Congress that the people of Baluchistan have a "right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country."

PTI

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