Updated: December 23, 2020 8:42:03 am
Mehrab received asylum in Canada in 2016 and for years had campaigned on behalf of missing persons in Pakistan. (File photo)
Toronto police said Tuesday they are not trying the death of a prominent Pakistani dissident as a suspect. Authorities said Karima Mehrab’s body was found Monday near the boardwalk in downtown Toronto.
Mehrab, 37, had been reported missing the day before.
“It is currently being investigated as a non-criminal death and there are no suspicious circumstances believed,” said Toronto police spokeswoman Caroline de Kloet.
Mehrab, also known as Karima Baloch, received asylum in Canada in 2016.
Police said she was known to frequent Toronto’s coastal and island areas. Police offered few details.
Mehrab was a vocal critic of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, which are often accused by human rights activists of kidnapping activists in the country’s Baluchistan province and other parts of Pakistan.
For years he had campaigned on behalf of the disappeared in Pakistan.
On December 14, he took to Twitter and said “Kidnapping, torture, murder: the plight of the thousands of disappeared in Pakistan” while sharing a story from The Guardian.
Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan has for years been the scene of a low-level insurgency by small separatist and nationalist groups who complain of discrimination and demand a fairer share of their province’s resources and wealth.
Separatists often target security forces in Balochistan, prompting authorities to detain suspects. Human rights activists often blame security forces for illegally detaining people. These detainees are rarely charged or appear in court, prompting protests from their families.
The Pakistani High Commission in Canada said in a statement that it approached the Canadian government to find out the cause of death.
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