Around 300 families from the Mashwani tribe have been forced to leave their ancestral homes during a military operation in Balochistan’s Quetta district, according to local sources, with displaced residents struggling to find shelter and food amid rain and cold weather.
The families fled Killi Muhammad Khail in Panjpai, southwest of Quetta city, after several days of tensions and military operations. Local sources said shells fired by Pakistani forces and the use of heavy weapons had damaged several houses.
Women, children and elderly people were among those displaced, while families faced shortages of shelter, food, clean drinking water and other necessities. Residents said they did not know where to take their children or when they would be able to return home.
Clashes between Pakistani forces and armed men were reported in Killi Muhammad Khail on Wednesday, November 4, when a Frontier Corps (FC) soldier was reportedly killed. Local sources also reported gunfire and a cordon around an Afghan refugee camp in the area, along with instructions for residents to leave.
The Pashtunkhwa National Awami Party condemned the displacement and said residents should be protected rather than removed from their ancestral areas following attacks.
“Evicting people from their homes and ancestral areas in the name of security is outright injustice and oppression,” the party said in a statement.
It called for shelter, food and medical care for the displaced families and demanded their safe and dignified return. The party said the state was responsible for combating terrorism and protecting the population, and that innocent residents must not be subjected to collective punishment.
Displacement and Restrictions in Gwadar and Kalat
The displacement in Panjpai comes amid complaints from farming communities in Gwadar’s Shadi Kaur that evictions and restrictions imposed in the name of security have cut them off from their homes and agricultural land.
Residents told The Balochistan Post that many families had already been forced to leave, while landowners, farmers and tenant farmers were being denied access to orchards and crops ready for harvest. They said agricultural assets worth tens of millions of rupees were at risk.
Former Gwadar District Council chairman Syed Mayar Noori said the district’s largest agricultural area was on the brink of ruin because those who worked the land could no longer reach it. He appealed to the relevant institutions to reconsider the restrictions and restore access to farmland and orchards.
Residents alleged that preventing them from harvesting their crops was intended to force more families out and seize their land.
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) said the eviction of Shadi Kaur’s residents was the culmination of months of pressure. According to the committee, mass arrests, torture and the enforced disappearance of approximately 40 men in early May were accompanied by a three-day blockade.
Restrictions at checkpoints and shortages of food continued through June, the BYC said, followed by orders on July 9 and 10 for residents to leave, with threats to burn down their homes if they refused.
The committee described restrictions on food supplies imposed on the entire population as “collective punishment” and said the conditions had already made it difficult for families to remain when the evacuation order was issued.
In Kalat, the Sarfraz Bugti-led Balochistan government ordered approximately 5,000 families, comprising around 30,000 people, to leave the mountainous Shoor Paarod area by October 30 and move to designated camps.
Officials said the land belonged to the government and cited the presence of armed fighters as the reason for the evacuation. Additional Chief Secretary for Home Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat said arrangements had been made at the camps and warned that residents who refused to leave would be removed forcibly.
“If they do not vacate the area, the forces will remove them by force,” he told a press conference in Quetta in October, and said an operation was already underway in Shoor Paarod.