Quetta, Sep 27 (IANS) A leading human rights organisation on Saturday strongly condemned the extrajudicial killing of a Baloch truck driver by Pakistan’s Frontier Corps (FC) in the Mastung district of Balochistan.
The Baloch Voice for Justice (BVJ) described the incident not as an isolated tragedy but as part of Pakistan’s long-standing oppression of the Baloch people.
The rights body alleged that the Baloch civilian, who merely did menial labour or basic business to feed his children, was labelled a “smuggler” and shot by the Pakistani forces.
“Baloch are being deprived of employment opportunities on their own land. The state has not only seized control of the natural resources of the Baloch nation but has also made them dependent on a single meal a day. The buying and selling of even a gallon of petrol is branded as ‘smuggling,’ and innocent lives are being ruthlessly sent to the jaws of death,” the BVJ stated.
“The tragedy is that, on the other hand, high-ranking officials of state institutions, ministers of the Balochistan government, and numerous members of the administration are involved in the regular smuggling of drugs, non-customs paid vehicles, and oil, while local residents are not even allowed to buy or sell a gallon of fuel. This double standard is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” it added.
Raising concern, the BVJ said that international and local human rights organisations are maintaining a “criminal silence” on the ongoing oppression by the Pakistani authorities in Balochistan. It added that currently, Baloch workers, students, lawyers, journalists, transporters, shopkeepers, landowners—in short, people associated with every sphere of life—are becoming targets of state oppression and violence.
The rights body demanded that not only should this incident be thoroughly and transparently investigated, but every individual and political activist raising their voice against Pakistan’s oppression should be provided protection. It called for immediate attention to the serious human rights violations in Balochistan.
Meanwhile, another human rights organisation on Saturday highlighted that a Baloch youth was forcibly disappeared in Kech district of Balochistan amid an escalating wave of enforced disappearances across the province.
Paank, the Baloch National Movement’s Human Rights Department, mentioned that 17-year-old Siraj Baloch, a resident of Balgatar in Kech, was forcibly disappeared on Friday near the Star Plus Market in Turbat city by armed men in a surf vehicle who struck him on the head with a gun and abducted him in broad daylight.
Siraj, a first-year intermediate student, had travelled to Turbat for educational purposes.
Paank expressed grave concern over the ongoing crackdown on Baloch students. The rights body urged the international community to hold the Pakistani state and its notorious law enforcement agencies accountable and to pressure them to end the use of enforced disappearances as a weapon of repression in Balochistan.
–IANS
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