ISI eliminating dissidents taking advantage of Covid-19: Experts

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s infamous spy agency ISI is allegedly taking advantage of global fight against pandemic and eliminating political dissidents. The list includes Baloch journalist Sajid Hussain in Sweden and Arif Wazir of the PTM in Waziristan.

A day after missing Baloch journalist Hussain’s body was found in Sweden in mysterious circumstances, Arif Wazir, a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) was shot dead by unidentified armed persons outside his home in Wana, South Waziristan on Saturday.

PTM has been critical of the state's policies in the country's tribal belt, where a massive operation against terrorists was conducted in recent times leading to large-scale displacement and enforced disappearances. Ever since it was founded in 2018, the PTM has organised regular demonstrations against Pakistan Army's heavy-handed operations in tribal regions.

Sources and experts alleged that ISI was behind these murders including in Sweden which has witnessed a political murder of Pakistani national for the first time. “Taking advantage of the pandemic, Pakistan has targeted those it perceives to be 'enemies' like the Baloch journalist Sajid Hussain in Sweden and Arif Wazir of the PTM in Waziristan. With the world attention focussed internally on tackling Covid1-9, Pakistan thinks it has found a window to deal with those who are critical of its policies in Baluchistan and KPK. The world and human rights organizations must not let Pakistan get away with it,” Tilak Devasher, member of India’s National Security Advisory Board told ET.

Baloch political activists believe that Sajid was killed for exposing the Pakistan army and the ISI for rampant enforced disappearances, torture, and killings of political activists, intellectuals, students, and journalists in Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

Faiz Baloch, a journalist based in London, told news agency ANI, "This is a cause of great concern for activists of the Baloch diaspora who are not even safe in countries like Sweden any more. It is also the failure on the part of Swedish authorities as well as the government who granted asylum to the man and then failed to protect him."