The bodies of five Baloch men bearing signs of torture were recovered from Panwan and nearby Ganz in Jiwani on Saturday, with families and rights groups saying at least four had been forcibly disappeared months earlier.
Pakistani military officials, however, said the five were armed men killed during an operation launched after Friday’s vehicle-borne attack by the Baloch Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade on a Pakistan Coast Guards camp in Panwan.
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), activists, journalists and relatives of the dead disputed the official account, saying records of the men’s disappearances and earlier family protests existed prior to the operation.
Four of the bodies were identified as Abdul Haq, Peeri son of Assa, Shah Bakhsh son of Umar and Haider Ali Mohammad. The identity of the fifth person was not immediately known.
The BYC said Peeri and Shah Bakhsh, both residents of Robar, had been forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces from their homes on January 7 and remained missing until their bodies were recovered between Panwan and Ganz.
Haider Ali Mohammad had also been missing prior to the recovery of his body, according to the VBMP. His family staged a sit-in outside the Gwadar deputy commissioner’s office on August 25, 2025, demanding his safe return.
Among those identified was Abdul Haq, the principal of Memar-e-Nau Academy in Gwadar and the younger brother of Mohammad Ramzan Baloch, who rights groups say was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces from Zero Point in Uthal on July 25, 2009.
He was also the uncle of Ali Haider, who has taken part in campaigns, including a long march to Islamabad, seeking information about his father’s whereabouts.
Abdul Haq’s family and rights groups said he was taken into custody in Gwadar in February and remained missing until his body was recovered from Panwan.
The VBMP expressed “deep concern” over what it described as his extrajudicial killing and demanded an “impartial, transparent and immediate investigation”.
BYC leader Sammi Deen Baloch described the recovery of his mutilated body as “another tragic episode in the dangerous and continuing pattern of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan”.
“Abdul Haq was not only a teacher and an educated individual, but had himself lived through the anguish of waiting for the return of his forcibly disappeared brother, Ramzan Baloch,” she said.
“Following his brother’s enforced disappearance, he took responsibility for holding his shattered family together and remained a source of support for them. Today, however, the same Abdul Haq Baloch, who had waited 16 years for his brother, was himself returned to his family as a mutilated body after being forcibly disappeared.”
BNM chairman Dr Naseem Baloch said Abdul Haq held a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Balochistan and had established Memar-e-Nau Academy in Mashkay to provide education to local children. After the school was allegedly closed by the Pakistani military, he opened another academy under the same name in Gwadar and continued teaching there.
Dr Sabiha Baloch said Abdul Haq’s family had been given “fake promises and assurances” for months and asked not to publicise his disappearance on the grounds that he would be released.
She said Abdul Haq had taken responsibility for raising and supporting the children of his missing brother, including Ali Haider, who as a child participated in a long march demanding his father’s recovery.
“The shelter over Ali Haider’s head has been snatched away once again,” she said, adding that killing disappeared people and later presenting them as militants would not contain the conflict but “only fuel it further”.
Norway-based journalist Kiyya Baloch described Abdul Haq as a “peaceful, kind and completely non-political man”, saying the case reflected the renewed use of what he called a “kill-and-dump policy”.
“After every violent attack, missing persons are killed, dumped and declared insurgents,” he said. “It did not work back in 2010, and it will not work now.”
In a recent interview, Balochistan National Party (BNP) chief Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal also spoke about the alleged killing of forcibly disappeared people in staged encounters, referring to the July 2022 Ziarat incident in which nine men were killed.
“It has always been their practice that they are not prepared to fight insurgents. Whenever they come under attack, they dump the bodies of forcibly disappeared people to vent their anger, take revenge or create fear,” Mengal said, referring to the Pakistani military.