Baloch National Movement has said in a statement that the Pakistani army, despite its confession of the ‘kidnapping’, killed Hafizullah Mohammad Hassani, and his body was recovered four years after his disappearance in Dalbanden. Hafizullah, a farmer by profession, went missing in August 2016 and was allegedly killed by the Pakistani army and his body was buried near a bridge in Chaghi. Recent heavy rains and flood disinterred his mutilated corpse.
According to the statement, Hafizullah’s younger brother Naimatullah had said in a conference that his brother had been abducted by the security forces from his house in Kili Qasim Khan. Hafizullah’s mother, while speaking to BBC Urdu and the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons camp in Quetta, alleged that a Pakistani army official, Major Naveed, had demanded 6.8 million rupees in ransom for her son. Despite the payment, Hafizullah was never recovered.
The statement further said that it was claimed that Major Naveed will be court-martialed, but the military’s announcement was met with suspicion from the Baloch nation and Pakistani journalists. The Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the military, announced in 2019 that the Army Chief Javed Bajwa had upheld Major Naveed’s sentence. Despite the conviction, Hafizullah was never released but was allegedly killed by the army. Hafizullah’s homicide is a clear message if anyone tried to expose the ugly side of the Pakistani military establishment, he will pay the price with his life, the statement said.
BNM said that the announcement of Major Naveed’s conviction was a charade. If he had been actually punished, Hafizullah would’ve returned alive. The army confessed his abduction, but then killed him through its kill-and-dump policy.’ Such steps, the statement said, are a testimony that despite its ‘horrific barbarism’, the military cannot be held accountable.
The statement further alleged that the ‘plunderage’ of the resources of Balochistan couldn’t satiate the army’s thirst, so they initiated a series of wide-spread ransom kidnappings. The Pakistani army is orchestrating genocide in Balochistan, and then profiting from it, the statement said.
The statement further said that the silence of the state institutions on the murder of Shaheena Baloch in Turbat is the continuation of a policy to radicalize the secular, tolerant society into a hardline, parochial society where the space for women is restricted. The Baloch nation holds women in high esteem – whenever a woman intervenes in a conflict, violence is stopped and blood feuds are spared. The ‘colonization’ of Balochistan and the state-led religious extremism hugely perturbed the secular environment of Balochistan. Hayat Baloch’s mother cried out loud, hoping that the forces would spare her young son, but she did not know that the killers were deprived of human values, the statement concluded.