In Balochistan’s Duki district, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) has claimed to have killed five individuals during an alleged intelligence-based operation. However, two of the victims have been identified as Baloch missing persons, raising serious questions about the legitimacy of the encounter.
One of the deceased, Muhammad Deen Marri, was allegedly forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces from Balochistan’s Harnai district in December 2024. His disappearance had been widely reported by human rights activists and social media users on 19 January 2025, with calls for his safe recovery. Now, on April 19, nearly four months later, the CTD has claimed he was killed in a recent operation, a revelation that has sparked accusations of a fake encounter.
The second individual identified among the dead is Ejaz s/o Khuda Bakhsh, a resident of Mangochar, district Kalat. According to his family, Ejaz was reportedly picked up by Pakistani forces on 12 April 2025, along with his companion Zaid s/o Abid Khan, a resident of Saryab, Quetta. Both men were reported missing thereafter. On 16 April, Ejaz’s family confirmed to the media that he had been forcibly disappeared. On Saturday, they identified his body from the photographs released after the CTD operation.
Human rights organizations, political workers, and civil society members have strongly condemned the incident, labelling it a continuation of the state’s long-standing practice of extrajudicial killings in Balochistan. Activists argue that such “fake encounters” often involve victims of enforced disappearances, who are later killed and falsely presented as militants in staged shootouts.
Rights groups have once again decried these incidents as grave violations of fundamental human rights and called for independent investigations into the CTD’s actions.
The identities of the remaining three individuals killed in the same operation have not yet been confirmed. However, concerns remain high among rights organizations that they, too, may be forcibly disappeared persons.