The Baloch human rights council (BHRC) strongly condemns Pakistan’s acts of reprisal against the families of Baloch insurgents.

It is quite concerning that the state establishment of Pakistan is using every possible instance to justify enforced disappearances, although, the United Nations clearly states that Enforced Disappearances cannot be justified under any circumstances either in peace or war. 

This came quite recently following the attack on Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) by Baloch insurgents that various media personnel, analysts and social media users linked to the powerful military establishment of Pakistan, interconnected the KSE attackers with the list of victims of enforced disappearances drafted by the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons and tabled in the National Assembly of Pakistan by Sardar Akhtar Mengal of Balochistan National Party. These developments reflect that the security forces of Pakistan and its clandestine agencies are not willing to resolve the prevalent human rights and humanitarian problems in Balochistan including enforced disappearances in a peaceful manner rather continue using brute military force to silence every dissent and evade accountability for the crimes against humanity in Balochistan.

According to local sources, the security forces of Pakistan have raided the houses of those insurgents involved in the KSE attack on Monday. The forces have raided the house of Tasleem in Dasht, Kech, and have forcibly disappeared his three brothers namely Mehboob, Nadeem and Niaz s/o Shambey, whereas, Waheed and Abdul s/o Hammal, brothers of another attacker Salman Hammal were abducted from their family home in Mand, Balochistan.

This is contradictory to the state’s approach towards the Taliban that it regards as its strategic assets and who in most cases enjoy the legal cover and are trialled in the court of law. In Balochistan, the military agencies act as Judge, Jury and Prosecutor while dealing with Baloch dissidents, despite repeated demands by the families of victims of enforced disappearances to disclose the fate of the victims and present them before the court as advised by the law of the country.

The BHRC in line with the international instruments that constitutes part of international criminal law, human rights and humanitarian law, has time and again demanded that Pakistan must end practicing enforced disappearances in Balochistan. These demands have been echoed by the UNWGEID and other independent human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Council of Pakistan but unfortunately, without stirring Pakistan a little to revise its criminal policies in Balochistan.

Pakistan must not be allowed to operate to the exclusion of international law and justify enforced disappearances under the pretext of exercising state sovereignty. The security forces of Pakistan are criminal not only under the domestic law but international law, responsible for thousands of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial murders in Balochistan, and elsewhere in the country. We demand that the suffering families of victims of enforced disappearances must be shared with the fate of the victims and must be served justice and reparation, including accountability measures initiated against the military officials stationed in Balochistan as the international law commands.