Global Watch | Balochistan and beyond: Pakistan Army’s state policy of forced disappearances and genocide

Recently, Pakistan’s security establishment tried to shatter the clamour of Baloch protestors by  charging on their protest site in the national capital of Islamabad on 21 December, 2023, even as hundreds were detained. Among the demonstrators were relatives, predominantly women and children, seeking the whereabouts of victims of enforced disappearance and alleged staged encounters orchestrated by Pakistani state security forces. This was followed by masked men, believed to be from Islamabad police, raiding the protest site on the intervening night of 26 December to evict the protestors  at gunpoint. This was the latest chapter in the distressing saga of the protestors, organised under Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), since 23 November, 2023, following the staged encounter of four Baloch youth in the Southern Turbat region. With the increasing cases of forced disappearance and staged encounters, the BYC  launched a march to Islamabad from Turbat to press their demands of halting extrajudicial killings by state agencies and holding the perpetrators accountable, on December 6, reaching Pakistan’s capital on December 20. The catalyst for this latest outcry was the grim fate of Balach Mola Bakhsh,  abducted by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Balochistan Police from his home in Turbat on 29 October, 2023. Balach’s detention without due process for 22 days, with a First Information Report (FIR) registered on 20 November, culminated in his killing during a ‘staged encounter’ on 23 November, 2023, along with three others, including Saif, Shakoor, and an unidentified individual, portrayed by the CTD as members of a ‘proscribed’ Baloch insurgent group. Incidentally, whereas Saif was reported to have been abducted from his grocery store on 1 August, Shakur son of Noor Jan, was arrested on 25 June from his home in the Tamp area. What is more distressing is how the calls for an impartial investigation were throttled by the administration, with the security establishment coercing the family members into withdrawing their calls for justice. For instance, Najma Balach, sister of the slain Balach Bakhsh, was  detained in an attempt to strongarm her family into ending the protests, which had refused to bury the slain pending a fair investigation and bringing the perpetrators to justice. This, despite the fact, that the interim prime minister of Pakistan, Anwarul Haq Kakkar, and chief justice of Pakistan happen to be from the province, and all this is unleashed under their watch and acquiescence given their silence. The extra-judicial killing of Balach and others refocussed the decades long modus operandi of the Pakistani state agencies which have engaged in egregious human rights violations including enforced disappearances, staged encounters, torture and rape, among others, in Balochistan. Rights activists have  accused the Pakistan Army of following ‘abduct, kill and dump’ policy wherein “missing persons are abducted, kept under their custody, and then killed, their bodies dumped anywhere in any condition, only to be found by a citizen. In the entire situation, those who have been killed are attempted to be passed off as having links with terrorist organisations.” The mineral resource rich region remains one of the most militarised regions of Pakistan with an intricate surveillance grid in place as the state engages in resource exploitation. The actions of the Pakistani security establishment are demonstrative of its legacy of staging fake encounters, with the  extrajudicial killing of Bugti tribe head Nawab Akbar Bugti, influential Baloch leader who had served as a Federal Minister of State Defence and provincial governor, in 2005 as a case in point. Multiple accounts from rights bodies have alleged that nearly 8,000 Balochis have been  subjected to enforced disappearance at the hands of Pakistan Army led security establishment, even as the Baloch groups claim the number to be considerably higher. In its 2011 report, Human Rights Watch accused Pakistan Army of carrying out “broad daylight”  public abduction of Baloch people. However, this is a legacy of the Pakistan Army which has relied on repressive means to ensure its political dominance. As such, this legacy of repression extends well beyond Balochistan, stretching to the harrowing events of Bangladesh’s independence struggle in 1971, along with continued suppression in Sindh and the tribal hinterland of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (former North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Agency). Further, it has a history of rewarding the likes of Butcher of Bengal and Balochistan, and Butcher of Palestinians ever since its creation in 1947. For instance, Pakistan Army stands accused of inflicting genocidal violence on Bengalis in its former East Pakistan province killing hundreds of thousands of Bengalis. The Bangladeshi government claims nearly 3 million people were killed by the Pakistan Army during the its liberation war, along with subjecting 2,00,000 to 4,00,000 women to sexual violence. General Tikka Khan, notorious as the ‘Butcher of Bengal,’ orchestrated Operation Searchlight which started on March 25, 1971, has the infamous distinction of overseeing the  killing of over 10,000 Bengalis in a single day on 20 May, 1971 in Chuknagar, Khulna, in what came to be known as the Chuknagar massacre. Interestingly, instead of putting him on trial, the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-led Pakistani government rewarded him with the appointment as the first Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in 1972. As Pakistan Army chief, General Tikka Khan also oversaw a violent military campaign from 1974 onwards against Baloch nationalists, including ruling the National Awami Party, who sought provincial autonomy and greater control over the resources. Tikka Khan’s ruthless campaign against Baloch nationalists, leading to the deaths of thousands, 160,000 by  many accounts, earned him yet another moniker as the ‘Butcher of Balochistan’, aside from his previous infamous distinction as the ‘Butcher of Bengal’. Despite his grim legacy, Tikka Khan’s ascent to prominent political positions post-retirement, such as National Security Advisor (NSA) to prime minister Zulfikar Bhutto in 1976 and Governor of Punjab under PM Benazir Bhutto in 1988, illustrates the entrenched patterns of rewarding military loyalists in Pakistan and by extension Pakistani military’s continued dominance over the civilian institutions. It would not be wrong to ascribe these actions of the country’s entrenched military establishment for its continued instability, including its bifurcation in 1971 with the fall of Dhaka and birth of Bangladesh, along with continued secessionism calls from multiple ethnic groups in Balochistan, Sindh and tribal regions. Likewise, the selective amnesia within Pakistan’s narratives becomes evident when juxtaposed against their proclaimed advocacy for global causes, such as championing the Palestinian struggle. As such, it is laughable when the Pakistani government starts championing as the prime advocate of Palestinians and their right to self-determination struggle against Israelis. However, this narrative conveniently obfuscates the  Pakistani Army’s involvement in the ruthless obliteration of Palestinian resistance forces during the Black September violence in Jordan in 1970, perpetuated under General Ziaul Haq’s guidance. General Zia oversaw the killing of 20,000-25,000 Palestinians across the refugee camps in Jordan, which forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees out of the Hashemite Kingdom. Interestingly, despite his credentials as the junior-most in line to the COAS position to succeed General Tikka Khan, it was his ruthlessness as the military administrator and potentially his role in securing King Hussein’s Jordanian throne that earned him the topmost position. This also paved the way for his coup within a year of his appointment, unleashing an era of ruthless Islamisation of Pakistani state institutions and positioning the Pakistani Army in the driving position of Pakistani politics by expanding its economic interests. As such, this pattern of rewarding the highest levels of brutality across the ranks should be seen as a carte blanche for its track record, which has been marked by abrasive human rights violations, coercive measures, and a legacy of silencing dissent. These are also the factors that have historically fuelled separatist sentiments and contributed to its continued instability. As such, the current protests by the Baloch people against the Pakistan Army’s recurring pattern of conducting extrajudicial killing in the hinterland of the country should be seen in this light. The onus comes on the Pakistani civil society, if at all there is one, to stand behind these marginalised communities, stop questioning the victims of state terror and start demanding the accountability of the forces that are at the helm of establishment. The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect_Firstpost’s views._ Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.