Washington, Feb 4 (IANS) Tara Chand, President of Baloch American Congress, slammed Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, over his claim that enforced disappearances in Balochistan are a fraud, describing the remarks as “shameless, cruel, and deeply offensive”.
Taking to social media platform X, Chand said, “Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, should be ashamed. Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly, he claimed that the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan is a fraud. Such a statement is shameless, cruel, and deeply offensive.”
“Only when his own children are taken by Pakistani forces, when members of his own family are forcibly disappeared, will he begin to understand the unbearable pain endured by the families of the disappeared. This pain is already known to the people of Balochistan, whose sons and daughters have been abducted by Pakistani soldiers for decades,” he added.
Chand stressed that for years, the families of the disappeared across Balochistan have “lived like prisoners in their own land, suffering in silence, carrying wounds that never heal”.
Condemning Asif’s remarks, the Baloch leader said, “For a man holding public office to deny their suffering is not only irresponsible, but inhumane and immoral.”
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Paank, the Baloch National Movement’s Human Rights Department, revealed another extrajudicial killing of a Baloch civilian by Pakistani forces in Panjgur district of Balochistan.
According to the rights body, the mutilated body of 28-year-old Jasim Jan was found in the Washbood area of Panjgur on Tuesday, after he was allegedly forcibly disappeared on January 21 by members of a Pakistan-backed death squad.
In its annual human rights report titled “A Year of Repression: Balochistan 2025,” Paank documented widespread human rights violations across the province in 2025.
The report recorded 1,355 cases of enforced disappearances, 225 extrajudicial killings, repeated aerial attacks on civilian areas in the province, while alleging systematic misuse of legal and administrative measures by Pakistani authorities to suppress peaceful civic movements and impose information restrictions aimed at silencing victims’ families and witnesses.
Highlighting the atrocities by Pakistani forces across Balochistan, Paank said, “The most alarming development of 2025 was the state’s expanded use of aerial warfare—including drone strikes and helicopter gunships—against civilian residential and recreational areas. These operations are typically conducted under the guise of ‘intelligence-based operations’ (IBOs) but have repeatedly resulted in civilian massacres.”
–IANS
scor/rs
