Highlights
The Barkhan triple murder case took a new twist on Thursday as law enforcement agencies recovered members of Khan Muhammad Marri’s family, including his wife and five children.
The development came after the arrest of Minister Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran. He is accused of being behind the deaths of a woman and two young men, whose bodies were found in a well near Khetran’s house in Barkhan district.
Levies said that Giran Naz, who was declared dead, and her two sons were recovered from Barkhan by the Quick Response Force, while one person was rescued in another operation in the Nana Sahib area of Dakki.
Two persons were rescued during the operation in Dera Bugti, while all the people have been kept in the custody of the government, Levies said.
It is likely that all six members of the family will be moved to Quetta.
The bodies were found Monday night and Khan Mohammad Marri, a former employee of Khetran, said they were his wife and elder sons. He said her five other children remained incarcerated at Khetran’s private jail.
Police also raided the Barkhan residence of Khetran on Wednesday for the recovery of the remaining five children, but they were later found by the Levies.
A protest continued in Quetta for the third day. Protesters are demanding the registration of a case against Khetran.
Khan Mohammad Marri, who is at the demonstration, said that he could confirm that two men found dead in Barkhan well are his sons. The women, who has not been identified and was certainly not Giran Naz Bibi, was “someone sister,” he said demanding that Sardar Khetran must be held accountable.
After the bodies were found and funeral prayers were offered, people from the Marri tribe carried them to Quetta on Tuesday and began a sit-in at Fayyaz Sumbal Chowk at the entrance of the high-security Red Zone.
On Wednesday, Balochistan police arrested Minister Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran in Quetta shortly after registering an FIR in the case.On Thursday, he was remanded into police custody for ten days by a Quetta court.
However, the police failed to name anyone in the FIR despite demands from protesters and a tribal jirga that a case must be registered against Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran.
The arrest and the FIR came shortly after tribal elders convened a jirga and demanded the removal of Abdur Rehman Khetran as the chief of the Khetran tribe. They issued a two-day ultimatum to the government to recover the children and register a case against Khetran. The elders warned that at the end of the ultimatum, all the tribes will gather in Quetta and join the protesters.
Police took Sardar Khetran into custody after he offered himself for arrest voluntarily, Aaj News Bureau Chief Mujeeb Ahmed reported.
However, despite the ultimatum issued by the jirga, the police failed to name Khetran or anyone else in the FIR registered at Barkhan Police Station.
The FIR says mutilated bodies with torture marks were found and that victims were killed an at ‘unknown’ location by ‘unidentified’ people.
It says Khan Mohammad Marri learned about the bodies from pictures circulating on social media and confirmed that they were his wife and sons.
All three victims were blindfolded and their hands were tied behind their backs, according to the FIR.
The face of the body said to be that of Giran Naz Bibi had completely been disfigured and a bullet had passed through her ear and mouth, it said.
A postmortem examination, however, determined that the female body was a teenage girl and not Giran Naz, who is 44.
Nawaz and Abdul Qadir, her sons, had bullet holes in their heads, the FIR said.
The FIR said police had told Khan Mohammad Marri to submit a written application if he wanted to name anyone but he did not show up at the police station. It also mentioned that claims were made only on social media.
The victims were caught up in a feud between Sadar Khetran and his rebellious son Inaam Khetran. Sadar Khethran allegedly detained the wife and seven children of his employee Mohammad Khan Marri when he refused to testify against Inaam.
Inaam Khetran, Sardar Kethran’s son, is supporting Mohammad Khan Marri and the efforts for the recovery of his family. On Tuesday, He released photos of the incarcerated children — four boys and one girl – showing the boys working at different houses in Sardar Khetran. Inaam said they were kept at three different locations.
A few weeks ago, Marri’s wife Giran Naz Bibi recorded a video saying they were being held by Khetran at his private jail. She carried a copy of the Holy Quran. Khan Mohammad Marri says a phone was smuggled into the private jail to record the video.
A police raid on Khetran’s Quetta residence did not yield anything. No FIR was registered as of Wednesday either, though the government announced a joint investigation team (JIT) Tuesday night after lawmakers raised the issue in the Balochistan Assembly.
Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran has denied the allegations and claimed that he did not maintain any private jail. There was no evidence of it and his opponents must prove the existence of such a jail, he says.
Khetran claims allegations against him were politically motivated and he was being targeted because he never allowed his district of Barkhan to be used for militant activities.
As the legal system fails to offer a remedy, the tribal elders have convened a jirga.
Senator Prince Aga Umar Ahmed Zai, the brother of Khan of Qalat, presided over the jirga, or meeting, of the tribal chiefs at Aiwan-e-Qalat Quetta.
The meeting was attended by Baloch and Pashtun tribal chiefs.
At the jirga, Jahangir Marri, who represents the Marri Ittehad, presented six demands including the following
The tribal leaders said that the humiliation of a woman was unacceptable and that Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran should be removed as tribal chief.
The jirga issued a two-day ultimatum to the government to grant the demands of the protester.
Prince Aga Umar said if the government did not take the demands seriously, all the tribes will gather in Quetta and join the sit-in protest.
