Intensification of State-Practiced Enforced Disappearances in Balochistan
Bizen Baluch
The Balochistan Post
State of Pakistan intensified the implementation and increased the ambit of its policy of enforced disappearances in Balochistan in order to counter the on-going Baloch national liberation movement. Initially, Baloch men and adults who were part of the Baloch movements were abducted — more than 40,000 Baloch missing persons are still illegally detained in state’s secret torture cells — and then more than the dead bodies of 10,000 missing persons were dumped in mutilated condition.
But in past few years, the state has further increased the extent of its policy of enforced disappearances in Balochistan by adding Baloch women, children and elders in it; particularly the family members of Baloch pro-freedom political parties and armed organizations are in target.
A Baloch family, containing women and infants, from Dasht area of Balochistan were illegally taken in the custody of Paksitan Army in 2016; the family was then released after the use of inhuman torture after few days. On the other hand, we saw abduction and dumping mutilated body of a teenage boy, Chakar from Paroum Panjgur area of Balochistan. That was a message that state will further enhance the use of its policy of enforced disappearances in Balochistan on a broader level.
We recently saw intensity in the application of state-practiced enforced disappearances in Balochistan. State military institutions abducted five women along with their eight children from Quetta city of Balochistan. Among the abductees were wife and six-year-old daughter of Baloch leader Dr. Allah Nazar Baloch and sister and nephews of another Baloch leader Aslam Baloch along with few other relatives.
In other military operations in Balochistan, the state enforced disappeared Baloch families from Dera Bugti, Rahgay Basima and Awaran areas of Balochistan which comes in the jurisdiction of ‘Collective Punishment.’ An abducted Baloch pregnant woman died in the torture cells of Ali Haider, a Paksitan Army proxy and a tribal warlord, in Awaran. It was reported that she suffered complications during pregnancy and died of inaccessibility to medical aid.
The abduction of teenage Asim Baloch from Turbat, Sagheer Baloch from the premises of University of Karachi, 13 and 17-year-old Ulfat and Arafat and 11-year-old Aaftab Baloch — Aaftab was then released after few months — who were abducted along with Nawaz Atta Baloch, the central information Secretary of Baloch Human Rights Organization (BHRO) from their residence in Karachi, are the fresh example of abduction of Baloch children.
When a man is abducted, he is tortured physically and psychologically and even if he is lucky enough to be released,the abducted man cannot live a normal life, his life is fully ruined, because of Pakistan Army’s use of inhuman torture upon them in the torture cells.
Have we ever imagined what Pakistan Army — which has a worst history of war crimes in shape of rape of 300,000 Bangladeshi women during Bangladesh war of independence in 1973 — does with Baloch abducted women? The Baloch society is very compact culturally and religiously, therefore, we do not receive details of abuses those Baloch women are subjected to in torture cells. But as political activists, we fear that Paksitan Army with the worst history of war crimes can use rape and abuse of Baloch women as a tactics of Collective Punishment in its counterinsurgency policies against the Baloch movement.
State of Pakistan violates the Baloch code of honor by entering in houses, severely torturing and then forcibly disappearing the Baloch women and children in particular and Baloch men and elders in general. which is a severe violation of human rights and creation of human rights crisis in war-torn Balochistan.
Currently, more than 100 Baloch women and children and more than 40,000 Baloch political leaders, activists, teachers, students, intellectuals and people from all walks of life are in the illegal custody of Paksitan Army and its proxies’ secret torture cells in entire Balochistan that has made the issue of Baloch missing persons very critical.
We appeal to United Nations, international human rights institutions; Amnesty International, Asian Human Rights Council, international institutions of child protection, Save the Children; and UN’s sub-institutions tha work for the rights of children, and others to intervene in Balochistan and to take immediate notice of the recent war crimes of enforced disappearances of Baloch men, women and children.