Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Monday announced the arrest of Assistant Professor Qazi Usman of BUITEMS University, accusing him of facilitating the Quetta Railway Station suicide bombing and other attacks.
At a press conference in Quetta, Bugti played a recorded statement attributed to Usman, in which the academic confirmed his background, including a Master’s degree from Quaid-i-Azam University and a PhD from Peshawar University.
In the video, he confessed to alleged links with militant groups. Bugti stressed that the information released was “not in great detail” so as not to hinder investigations.
However, according to family and local sources, Usman and his younger brother Jibran Ahmed were detained during a raid by security forces and Counter-Terrorism Department officials in Quetta’s Afnan Town on 12 August. They were allegedly held incommunicado for four days before the arrest was officially declared.
His enforced disappearance was also reported by The Balochistan Post last week.
Observers note that similar cases have repeatedly emerged in Balochistan, where people reported missing are later presented in custody and accused of militancy through televised confessions and media trials. Many of those individuals have subsequently been acquitted by courts due to lack of evidence.
Rights groups and activists strongly condemned the public airing of Usman’s purported confession, describing it as coerced and obtained under duress.
Paank, the human rights wing of the Baloch National Movement (BNM), said the video amounted to a “state-run smear campaign” and violated Pakistan’s obligations under international law.
“Coerced confessions and prejudicial, state-run smear campaigns violate the prohibition on torture and the right to a fair trial,” the group said in a statement. It called for Mr Usman’s immediate access to lawyers, an independent investigation into his detention, and accountability for officials.
Prominent rights lawyer Imaan Mazari said she had witnessed firsthand how detainees are forced to record scripted messages under threats. “I am myself a witness to how a written script is handed to you in custody, along with threats that if you refuse to record the video message, ‘your mother will find your shroud unbearably heavy,’” she wrote on X. She criticized journalists for broadcasting such statements, calling it “trial by media” and complicity with state agencies.
In another post, Mazari said Dr Usman Qazi was “not a terrorist” but a victim of “state-sponsored terrorism” against Pakistan’s own citizens. She argued that the state uses propaganda after every security failure in Balochistan “to justify its war crimes against the Baloch people” instead of ending enforced disappearances and killings.
Mazari said those who “blindly and foolishly accept such ‘confessions’” ignore the near-total confession rate in military courts. “The whole country has become a military court and the circus goes on as people forcibly disappeared are now framed as ‘terrorists’ as a matter of routine,” she wrote.
She also questioned why people are disappeared in the first place if they are genuine suspects. “If the forcibly disappeared are indeed terrorists, why does the state forcibly disappear them to begin with? Why are they not arrested in a criminal or terrorism case in accordance with law? How many lives will be destroyed as this policy of forced disappearances and the brazen abuse of anti-terror laws continues?”
Baloch activist Sadia Baloch said coerced confessions and wrongful convictions of disappeared persons were part of a wider pattern to criminalize dissent. “State forces and agencies often use this to silence detainees, justify prolonged detention without trial, and stigmatize political activism,” she said.
Baloch Voice for Justice, another rights group, said the alleged confession raised “serious legal questions” and amounted to “a grave violation of human rights.” In a detailed statement, the group argued that the video was circulated on social media even before the government’s press conference, which it said showed state institutions were “prioritizing propaganda over justice.”
The group highlighted six concerns, including the right to a fair trial, the illegality of custodial statements, and the risk of torture and coercion. It warned that broadcasting confessions without judicial process amounted to “trial by media” and an attack on the dignity and rights of detainees.
BVJ also linked the case to a wider pattern in Pakistan, noting that forced confessions had previously been used against political opponents, students, and activists, and said the tactic was being weaponized in Balochistan to silence dissent. “Against this backdrop, Professor Usman Qazi’s life is in grave danger,” the group said, urging Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others to intervene.