The shadows of fear lengthen in Balochistan as Pakistan’s military apparatus claims three more innocent lives through enforced disappearance, according to a leading advocacy group. Reported on Tuesday, these abductions intensify an already alarming surge in state-backed atrocities plaguing the province.
Paank, the human rights arm of the Baloch National Movement, detailed the harrowing ordeals. On January 24, CTD agents in Quetta’s bustling Ganj Chowk area seized 40-year-old educator Ali Ahmad Reki from Sorab. Simultaneously, 25-year-old physician Shahjain Ahmad met the same fate at the identical spot.
The net widened further: 22-year-old Junaid Ahmad, a Sorab student, was hauled away from Children Hospital on Khwari Road the previous day, January 23. No traces, no updates – just another statistic in Balochistan’s ledger of loss.
This triad of terror coincides with Baloch Genocide Day, where the Baloch Students Organization (Azad) issued a clarion call to international watchdogs. Marking the remembrance of multitudes ravaged by Pakistan’s iron-fisted ‘occupation,’ the missive catalogs systemic horrors: indefinite detentions sans trial, barbaric ‘kill and dump’ tactics yielding tortured corpses, routine brutality in custody, and muzzling of dissenters from campuses to newsrooms.
Vulnerable groups suffer disproportionately. Mothers, sisters, and children of the vanished stage relentless sit-ins, only to face harassment and vengeance. Schools shutter, jobs evaporate, entrenching generational poverty and despair. Appeals for transparent inquiries fall on deaf ears in Islamabad.
In a bold demand, BSO presses for worldwide solidarity: champion UN investigations, amplify Balochistan’s plight in global assemblies. These fresh vanishings signal not abatement, but acceleration of a campaign to crush Baloch identity. The international community must act before the graves multiply.