Protect us from Pak Army, ISI; Muhajir activist appeals to Modi, Trump

Highlighting the atrocities committed against the ethnic and religious minorities in Pakistan, a woman Muhajir activist on Thursday demanded cessation of funding and aid to the "terrorist state" and urged US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to protect the community from the Pakistani army and the ISI.

"Pakistan should be blacklisted and all kinds of funding to the country must be stopped. It's a terrorist state. Pak has spread terrorism across the world. We appeal to US President Trump and PM Modi to free us and save us from the ISI and Pak force," Kahkashan Haider, a Muhajir activist, said.

Haider said that Pakistan has been turned into a graveyard of minorities in the 70 plus years since its creation.

"Thousands are being killed, countless are missing, many are behind bars, be they Sindhis, Muhajirs, Baloch, Shias, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians. Pakistan is a terrorist state. It has been made a graveyard of minorities," Haider said.

The activist said that her community would hold protests in New York in a bid to attract the attention of journalists and world leaders gathered in the city for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session.

For long, Pakistan's establishment has been criticised over its practice of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by international bodies and local human rights organisations that dare to speak out on the issue.

According to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, an entity established by the Pakistani government, about 5,000 cases of enforced disappearances have been registered since 2014. Most of them are still unresolved.

Independent local and international human rights organisations put the numbers much higher. Around 20,000 have reportedly been abducted only from Balochistan, out of which more than 2,500 have turned up dead as bullet-riddled dead bodies, bearing signs of extreme torture.

Before being elected as Prime Minister, Imran Khan had admitted in multiple interviews about the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings and vowed to resign if he was unable to put an end to the practice, holding those involved responsible.