Lahore Police thinks of Gilgiti and Balti students as terrorists

I am writing from Lahore. Today we witnessed the height of biased attitude at the hands of police in Lahore. We live on the 3rd floor of a 6-story building in Lahore. At around 11:20 p.m some officials of the Police saw one of our roomates in the streets and asked about his name and address. He introduced himself, telling them his name and that he is from Gilgit-Baltistan, studying at university in the city. On hearing this they came to our rooms without any reason and started an unexplained search. We asked for a warrant but they refused to answer and instead used highly unacceptable language. They threatened us that they will put us in jail.

We were all surprised to see biased attitude because there are six floors in the building and they singled out our home for the search, without any reason. All of us are simple and hardworking students of a prestigious University of Lahore. The police officials humiliated us by using vulgar language, entering our home without a warrant and searching our belongings without giving any reason. They took our CNIC copies and didn’t check University IDs although we provided them with. They searched only our rooms.

Just because we are Gilgitis or Baltistani doesn’t mean that we are terrorists. Singling us out for random checks and unexplained home searches will have negative repercussions because we are forced to study in cities of Pakistan due to lack of facilities in our region. Discouraging the entire GBian student community by putting us through undue psychological stress is an injustice of the highest order.

We request Chief Minister Syed Mehdi Shah, members of his cabinet, Chief Secretary and other officials of Gilgit-Baltistan to help the students of Gilgit Baltistan in Lahore and other cities and save us from this unfair treatment.

Kamaluddin

Lahore