Incidents of Crime, missing persons increased in 2020 in Sindh province, says Pakistan Human Rights Commission

Islamabad [Pakistan], June 22 (ANI): Incidents of missing persons and crime increased in Sindh province in the year 2020, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Addressing a press briefing at the local press club on Monday, HRCP's Sindh chapter vice president Qazi Khizar Habib expressed his concern over the state of human rights in Sindh and shared details of the situation in the province in 2020, Dawn reported.
He said the data from Sindh prisons department indicated that 121 prisoners were awarded death sentence in 2020. He said that no executions were, however, carried out. He said that as of end-2020, 513 prisoners in Sindh were facing capital punishment.
He further stated that according to the Sindh Human Rights Defenders Network, a total of 127 persons went missing in Sindh, of which 112 resurfaced while 15 were still missing. He also disclosed that at least six cases of forced conversion of Hindu girls were reported in Sindh.
He pointed out that in violation of right to freedom of association, the federal government decided to formally ban three Sindhi nationalist political entities in May including the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (Arisar) and two other political groups operating in Sindh labelled as 'militant' by authorities, Dawn reported.
He said that based on reports in press, the HRCP recorded 197 honour killing cases in 2020 in Sindh, involving 215 victims -- 79 men and 136 women.
He further added that according to Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani, around 3.5 million children in Sindh were out of school. Pursuing its privatisation programme, the Pakistan Steel Mills management removed over 4,500 workers and sought to retrench more workers. (ANI)