Balochistan: Three previously abducted Baloch killed in staged explosion

QUETTA: Three previously abducted Baloch were killed in an explosion on Sunday in the Balgtar area of district Kech in Balochistan.

According to details, the Pakistani media sources reported that three people were killed in a ‘roadside explosion’ but the residents of the area and Baloch Human Rights groups rejected the claims of Pakistani media and officials.

The three victims namely Adil Asa, Shah Jehan Atta and Nabi Bakhsh son Liwari along with another three members of the same family were abducted by Pakistani forces on 22, August 2023 from Turbat, Balochistan.

On Sunday, November, 19 local authorities the dead bodies of Adil Asa, Shah Jehan Atta and Nabi Bakhsh to a regional hospital and claimed that they were killed in an explosion.  

×

Meanwhile, the Baloch social media activists, Human Rights campaigners and local social and political groups rejected the claims of Pakistani forces that the men were killed in Pakistani forces’ custody and that the explosion was only staged to conceal their crimes.

The Pakistani police’s Counter Terrorism Department has previously killed abducted Baloch in fake encounters in different areas of Balochistan.

Local analysts tell Balochwarna News that the CTD was made to cover up the crimes of the Pakistani army and intelligence agencies and to kill the enforced-disappeared Baloch in a staged encounter. So far they have killed several dozen missing Baloch in similar incidents.

A regional analyst warned that ‘the latest twist in CTD’s motive indicates that in future they could implicate Baloch pro-freedom groups in such incidents or even claim the responsibility for such incidents in their name in their notorious attempt to misguide the common Baloch about the Baloch freedom struggle.’  

Recently, Pakistan’s federal government formed a committee headed by Sarfaraz Bugti to resolve the issue of enforced disappearance.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, pro-freedom Baloch parties and Baloch activists on social media have strongly criticised the appointment of Bugti as head of the committee for missing persons.

While the pro-freedom groups accused Bugti of heading a Pakistan military-backed death squad and being involved in target killing and disappearances, the Baloch human rights groups voiced strong reservations that Bugti has previously issued controversial statements about missing persons in Balochistan.

Hence, the Baloch HR activists and organisations believe that Sarfaraz Bugti cannot play an impartial and positive role in tracing the enforced-disappearanced persons in Balochistan.