Quetta, Sep 28 (IANS) As violence against civilians continues unabated across Balochistan, leading human rights organisations brought to light the extrajudicial killing of a man and the enforced disappearance of two women, including a minor girl, by the Pakistani forces in Balochistan.
The Baloch Women Forum (BWF) revealed that 25-year-old Hani Baloch and her minor daughter Ayesha Baloch were forcibly disappeared on Sunday night from their home in Kech district by Pakistani security forces and state backed death squads. Since then, it said, their whereabouts remain unknown.
“The abduction of Baloch women and children takes place within a system of colonial domination over the colonized Baloch population, where enforced disappearance, intimidation and collective punishment are used to exert control beyond the individual being targeted. When a mother and her child are taken from their home, the consequences extend to the entire family, leaving relatives in fear, uncertainty and prolonged suffering,” the BWF stated.
“Alongside these disappearances, there are attempts to control how Balochistan is presented to the outside world. In many cases, forcibly disappeared individuals have been pressured to appear before cameras or deliver statements under coercive conditions. Such manufactured narratives seek to conceal the reality of enforced disappearance and project an image of normalcy while families continue to search for those taken from them,” it added.
Stressing that Hani Baloch and Ayesha Baloch must not disappear behind a “manufactured narrative” by Pakistani authorities, the BWF said their whereabouts must be disclosed, their legal status made public, and their immediate release ensured.
Highlighting atrocities against civilians in Balochistan, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) revealed that the mutilated body of 31-year-old farmer Abdul Hameed was found at Maskay Cross on September 17, after remaining missing for nearly five months.
“The case of Abdul Hameed provides a glance of consistency of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of common Baloch people at the hands of Pakistani paramilitary forces. In fact, innocent and peaceful Baloch inhabitants have often been prime targets of Pakistani forces who are engaged in the well-being of their own family,” the rights body stated.
Amid what it described as a rapid surge in enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of common citizens in Balochistan. BYC also appealed to the United Nations (UN), European Commission and wider global community to hold the Pakistani government accountable for committing “inhumane acts” against nonviolent and peaceful people.
–IANS
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