Amnesty International, USA, August 14, 2017
Punhal Sario, a human rights defender and Convener of the Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh, was subjected to enforced disappearance on the night of 3 August. His friend Dr. Haresh Kumar, witnessed the abduction. Dr. Haresh claims Punhal Sario was taken from his car when he was coming out of Khanabadosh Writer’s Café, which is part of the Sindh Museum in Hyderabad, in the Sindh province of Pakistan. His fate and whereabouts remain unknown since then.
Mr. Punhal Sario had been part of a civil society effort to raise awareness of the trend of enforced disappearances of activists, writers, and political workers in Sindh under the newly established forum Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh. He was picked up a day before a large conference organised by the forum. This aimed at bringing together writers, journalists, activists, and intellectuals to awareness of the situation of missing persons in Sindh.
Local Sindhi activists claim that as many as 60 activists have been forcibly disappeared in the past few months from Sindh.
The practice of enforced disappearances has been an ongoing phenomenon in Sindh since at least a decade, but local activists claim that since February 2017, the numbers of people that have gone missing has increased. Political activists, writers, and human rights defenders have been picked up, allegedly by security agencies. According to local activists, as many as 60 individuals remain missing.
