Pakistani police free 290 Baluch activists arrested while protesting extrajudicial killings

By MUNIR AHMED
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani police say they have freed 290 activists who were arrested when they attempted to hold a protest last week in the capital, Islamabad. Their release Monday came after protest organizers gave authorities a three-day deadline to free all those detained. The activists had traveled from Baluchistan province to protest forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the militancy-ravaged southwest. They wanted to draw attention to the case of 24-year-old Balaach Mola Bakhsh, who died in November while in police custody in Baluchistan. The protesters were mostly women and some had brought along their children, aged 7-12, when security forces used batons and water canons to disperse and arrest them.