Quetta, June 5 (IANS) The Baloch National Movement (BNM) has warned that continued silence from the international community has intensified the worsening human rights situation in Balochistan, alleging that the Pakistani Army is carrying out indiscriminate attacks targeting unarmed civilians across the province.
Describing the operations as “state terrorism,” the BNM accused Pakistani authorities of committing a “systematic genocide” of the Baloch civilians, stressing the situation demands immediate international intervention.
The statement said, “The Baloch National Movement (BNM) strongly condemns this state terrorism. Pakistan is committing a systematic genocide of the Baloch nation, making international intervention an absolute necessity.”
The group noted that 17 people were extrajudicially killed by Pakistani forces in Balochistan this week alone. It further alleged that enforced disappearances are occurring on a daily basis in several districts of the province, including Mastung, Noshkai, Zehri, Khuzdar, Kech, and Gwadar, alongside the relentless shelling of civilian areas by gunship helicopters of the Pakistani army.
According to the BNM, since the very first day of “occupation” of Balochistan in 1948 by Pakistan, the province has faced continuous military aggression, adding that the state’s policy of “crushing political forces” through extreme violence and brute force remains in full effect.
“The unending cycle of enforced disappearances has socially and economically ruined thousands of families. Between May 31 and June 2—a span of just three days—the Pakistan Army explicitly killed 17 people, yet it actively conceals the details of the victims,” the BNM stated.
“In many such instances, previously abducted individuals are murdered in custody, with the Pakistan Army masking these atrocities as armed encounters to make false claims of counter-insurgency. Furthermore, the dead bodies of the victims are not being handed over to their grieving relatives,” it added.
Asserting that the Pakistani authorities are actively executing a “calculated policy of Baloch genocide,” the BNM described the atrocities as a gradual, systematic process aimed at destroying the province politically, culturally, socially, and economically.
“Dozens of villages across the districts of Dera Bugti, Kohlu, Awaran, Zehri, Khuzdar, Panjgur, Kech, and Gwadar have been completely ravaged, forcing mass forced displacement. As a continuation of this scorched-earth policy, the village of Panwan in the Jimuri tehsil of Gwadar has recently come under continuous assault,” it added.
Highlighting the continued midnight raids on civilian homes by Pakistani forces in the Panwan region of Balochistan, the BNM said, “Driven to the brink by enforced disappearances, home demolitions, and extrajudicial killings, dozens of families comprising hundreds of individuals have been forced to flee across the border to Western Balochistan. There, they face severe economic and social hardships as refugees, and dozens of children have been entirely deprived of their education.”
The BNM called on the international community to officially declare Balochistan a “war-torn, disputed territory” and intervene immediately.
–IANS
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