22 Police Personnel Kidnapped and Released After Torture in Mastung: Kept in Detention for Two Days, Beaten While Starved and Thirsty
MASTUNG (Daily Qudrat Quetta) — Twenty-two police personnel kidnapped from Balochistan’s Mastung district returned to their homes on Sunday after remaining in the custody of armed men for two days. The recovered personnel described incidents of torture during detention, being kept hungry and thirsty, and being pressured to quit their police jobs.
Mastung Police DSP Rafiq Hamza confirmed the recovery of the personnel; however, he did not disclose where and how they were recovered. A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the number of personnel at 22, while police had initially reported the kidnapping of 20 personnel.
According to police, the incident occurred on Friday afternoon near Gorgina in the Kirdgap area within Mastung’s limits, where unidentified armed men on motorcycles stopped a passenger van traveling from Kalat to Noshki and took the police personnel on board, along with the van, with them. The van also had a driver and three ordinary passengers, who were later released.
The kidnapped personnel belonged to the Rakhshan Division districts of Kharan, Noshki, Chagai, and Washuk. Among them were 21 former Levies personnel who became part of the police after the merger of the police and Levies forces. All the personnel were undergoing training at the Police Recruit Training Center in Kalat and were going to their homes on weekly leave. The abductees also included an instructor.
According to one recovered personnel, they had taken a connecting road beyond Manguchar, which they had been told would lead to Noshki more quickly. Due to limited leave, they wanted to reach their homes sooner.
The personnel said the kidnappers blindfolded them and kept them in a room at an unknown location. According to them, on the first day of the kidnapping, they were subjected to torture and told to quit their police jobs. The kidnappers also made videos of them during detention.
According to the recovered personnel, they were mostly kept hungry and were given water only with difficulty. One personnel said that after pleading, they would get water, while once or twice they were given only dry bread to eat.
According to the personnel, on Sunday at the time of Zuhr prayer, the kidnappers took them from the unknown location and kept them traveling for quite a while, after which they left them in a desolate area and fled. Later, three Felder vehicles reached there and shifted them to Quetta. Security personnel allowed them to go home after initial questioning.
A detailed official position of the Balochistan government or police regarding the incident has not yet emerged.
