Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Sindh Ameer Kashif Saeed Sheikh today strongly condemned the police baton-charge and arrest of the families of missing children, who were staging a sit-in at Babarloi and Hyderabad roads.
He also denounced the police action against lawyers, journalists, political and social activists who were holding peaceful protests, terming it an act of authoritarianism and a grave violation of human rights, according to the JI office information today.
Mr Sheikh said that the sit-in protest at Babarloi continued for 27 days against the missing of more than 20 children, including Priya Kumari and Ujala Solangi, but the the Sindh government had failed to take any meaningful action for their recovery.
He said that Sindh Police, which had failed for years to recover innocent missing children, had not intensified its efforts against kidnappers and dacoits. Instead, the JI leader said, it had resorted to beating, brutally assaulting, and arresting the families of missing children and civil society activists who were peacefully protesting, calling the police action the height of insensitivity and apathy.
Sheikh stated: “The peaceful protest is a constitutional and fundamental human right of every citizen. Denying people their constitutional right to protest amounts to a violation of the Constitution.”
He further said that unless the influence of powerful feudal lords and tribal chiefs, allegedly patronized by the government, was curtailed, missing children could not be recovered.
The JI leader demanded that the government should take effective measures for the recovery of missing children instead of suppressing and victimizing their families. He also called for the immediate release of all peaceful protesters who were arrested during the demonstrations.