Rights activist marches over 2,000 km for missing persons

A 72-year-old Pakistani rights activist, who has walked over 2,000 km to create awareness about enforced disappearances in the restive Balochistan province, believes he will get justice like Mahatma Gandhi.
"Mahatma Gandhi got his country after a march of 300 km. I am hopeful I will get justice after having walked 3,000 km," Mama Qadeer Baloch, who is leading the march under the banner of Voice of Missing Baloch Persons (VMBP), told PTI.
Baloch said he has already entered the jurisdiction of Islamabad and will visit the United Nations office here on Monday with his supporters to seek justice for "missing people" in Balochistan.

The march, which started from Balochistan's capital Quetta on October 27, is to create awareness about rights violations in the southwestern Balochistan province and demand the recovery of "missing" relatives.
The term "missing persons" is used in Pakistan to refer to persons detained without charge by Pakistani security and intelligence agencies. Rights groups claim hundreds of people have been detained in Balochistan.
Baloch's protest has been compared by some to Mahatma Gandhi's Dandi march undertaken in 1930 to protest the British salt tax.

The first phase of the protest, a 730 km walk, ended in Karachi with a protest in front of the Press Club on November 23. The second phase began in mid-December.

Organisers claimed Baloch's campaign is the world's longest ever protest march.
Asked if he had received any assurance from the government, he said, "I have not received anything till now. But they have ensured that we get security."
Though he was followed by his small band of about 30 supporters during the entire march, many joined him from Rawalpindi but most had their faces covered.