The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan allegedly executed four “missing” persons in a “fake encounter” in Marwar, a mountainous terrain in district Bolan, some 60 kilometres from the provincial capital Quetta.
The CTD claimed two days ago, on Thursday, that it had received intelligence that “separatists” were residing in the mountains of Marwar. Based on the tip-off, the CTD claimed that it had conducted a search operation to apprehend the Baloch “pro-independence” fighters. But an alleged confrontation broke out between the Pakistani forces and the Baloch fighters and four of them were killed. Six others successfully escaped.
The CTD said that the “terrorists” were involved in numerous attacks on the Pakistani forces in the past month.
But CTD’s account of the incident turned out to be a total farce. The Balochistan Post investigated the incident and learned from reliable sources the so-called “terrorists” were actually Baloch missing persons who had been “abducted” by the Pakistani forces from different areas of Balochistan.
TBP verified one of the victims as Murad alias Maado Mazarani Marri s/o Nehal Khan, a resident of Quetta, who had been “forcibly disappeared” in a raid on his house in Quetta’s Jattak Stop two years ago. The other three victims had a similar physical appearance: a long, ruffled beard, torn old clothes and dishevelled hair – the telltale signs of someone who has spent years in confinement.
The other three have been identified as Ali Baig s/o Dahee Khan, Khairo s/o Shah Meer and Murad Bux s/o Noor Khan.
The Balochistan Post closely analyzed the posthumous images of the four individuals published by the Counter-Terrorism Department and found that all four of them had been shot in the head at the point-blank range. There were no signs of an armed confrontation that the CTD claims happened.
All the available evidence indicates that the four individuals, all of them Baloch missing persons, were executed in a fake encounter and then framed as “terrorists.”
It should be noted that the CTD is notorious for its “fake encounters” in Balochistan – activists and Baloch nationalists have called it the “encounter specialists of Balochistan.”
Earlier this year, the CTD claimed that it had killed five “militants” in Mastung in an armed confrontation. Later revelations repudiated this claim – the individuals in question were actually Baloch missing persons who had been missing for years.
Human rights groups and Baloch nationalist factions demanded a thorough investigation of the incident, but to no avail. They said that they are concerned about the lives of other Baloch missing persons. As the recent incident has shown, their concerns are not misplaced.