Quetta, July 27 (IANS) As violence against civilians continues unabated in Balochistan, a leading human rights organisation on Monday alleged that three civilians were forcibly disappeared by the Pakistani forces.
According to the statement released by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) on X, Aziz Baloch (15), working as a rickshaw driver, was abducted from Quetta’s Saryab Road on July 23. The BYC alleged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)/Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) were the abductors.
Khalil Ahmed (30), a labourer, was abducted from his home in Nigar, Surab, on July 12 at 5 pm (local time). The BYC alleged that Ahmed’s abductors were Pakistan’s Frontier Corps (FC)/Army.
The BYC also mentioned that Gull Muhammad, a 27-year-old labourer, was abducted from his home in Nigar, Surab on July 12 and alleged that Pakistan FC/Army were the abductors.
Last week, the Baloch Women Forum (BWF) expressed grave concern over the escalating enforced disappearances of civilians, including women and children, allegedly carried out by Pakistani forces in Balochistan, warning that the practice has become one of the most alarming human rights issues of the 21st century.
The statement came after the July 21 incident in the Killi Kongarh area in Mastung district of Balochistan, where security forces personnel raided a house and abducted six members of a family.
The victims were identified as 33-year-old Bibi Rafia, her three young children aged three months, four years, and six years, her 40-year-old brother Muhammad Arif, and her 18-year-old niece Bibi Nida.
Condemning the intensifying pattern of enforced disappearance across the province, the BWF said: “The recent Mastung incident is not just a tragedy for one family but a link in this broader chain of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, about which local human rights activists, affected families, and various organisations have continuously raised their voices.”
“Numerous families have been waiting for years for the return of their loved ones; numerous victims have passed away while waiting for their loved ones; yet this policy of coercion shows no signs of ending,” it added.
The BWF stressed that international law explicitly recognises women and children as categories warranting special protection.
“When it comes to a mother, the situation becomes even more serious, because the disappearance of a mother is not merely the disappearance of an individual—it plunges the entire family, especially minor children, into severe psychological, economic, and social crises. If even infants or minor children are deprived of their freedom, the matter takes on an even more grave nature, which has now assumed an even more serious form in Balochistan today,” it noted.
The forum noted that the worsening situation places an even greater responsibility on human rights organisations to raise their voice on every forum to help end the ongoing abuses by Pakistani authorities in Balochistan.
–IANS
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