A meeting of the Balochistan provincial cabinet was held under the chairmanship of the controversial Chief Minister, Sarfraz Bugti, whose government is led by the Pakistan Peoples Party. During the meeting, a contentious decision was taken to grant legal cover to enforced disappearances and to detain forcibly disappeared persons in custody centres, where they would be interrogated under the supervision of police officers from the Counter-Terrorism Department.
The approval of the Balochistan Prevention, Detention and Deradicalisation Rules 2025 by a government installed with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful institutions is an attempt to legalise enforced disappearances in Balochistan. The apparent objective is to suppress the growing movement against enforced disappearances and state repression, and to silence the families of the disappeared. Declaring forcibly disappeared individuals as “suspects” and subjecting them to interrogation in detention centres instead of presenting them before courts stands in direct contradiction to the fundamental human rights guaranteed under the Constitution of Pakistan.
From its very first day, the government imposed on Balochistan under Sarfraz Bugti has consistently denied the grave human rights issue of enforced disappearances and has actively promoted the state’s official narrative on the matter. However, the enforced disappearance of political activists in Balochistan cannot be denied. The United Nations human rights bodies, Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and other organisations have repeatedly raised concerns over the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and have urged Pakistan’s authorities and government to address this serious human rights violation.
On the one hand, the Balochistan government continues to deny the existence of enforced disappearances, while on the other, its decision to approve the Prevention, Detention and Deradicalisation Rules amounts to an admission that state institutions are involved in enforced disappearances in the region. The approval of these rules effectively grants state agencies a free hand to forcibly disappear political activists. Rather than ending enforced disappearances, giving them legal cover will only deepen the crisis. Enforced disappearances, under any circumstances, are unconstitutional and constitute a grave violation of human rights. While enforced disappearances may be given a legal façade through the use of force, it will not be possible to silence the voices rising against them.