On 26 Nov, the Turbat Session Judge has directed the SHO Turbat City Police Station to register a case against the nominated officials including the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) RO for their alleged involvement in the extrajudicial killing. However, the FIR could not be registered so far, as the negotiations between the district officials and the protesters failed. The protesters are demanding the arrest of CTD and other officials involved in the custodial murder of Baloch Baloch. The protesters are also demanding an end to enforced disappearances and fake encounters.
On 25 Nov, thousands of men, women, and children took to the streets of Turbat, marching from Shaheed Fada Chowk to the Session Court with Baluch Molla Bakhsh’s body. They gathered in front of the court, staging a sit-in protest to demand the registration of an FIR against the CTD for the murder of their fellow Baloch.
It is worth mentioning that on the night of November 23, CTD claimed to have killed Baloch Mola Bakhsh along with three other under-custody individuals in a purported encounter on Passni Road Turbat. According to Bakhsh’s family, he was forcibly disappeared during a raid at his home in Apsar at 12 o’clock on the night of October 29, and he was produced before ATC Turbat on November 12 and granted a 10-day remand.
In the protest, VBMP Vice Chairman Mama Qadeer Baloch from Quetta also participated, leading the rally with Dr. Shelly Bugti, the head of the Baloch Women Forum. Further demonstrating solidarity with the protesters, a delegation headed by Maulana Hidayat ur Rehman, the leader of the Haq Do Movement, and Sajad Turi, the chief of the BNP, also participated in the sit-in. Their presence underscored the depth of grief and anger felt by the Baloch community over this senseless killing.
Earlier, a protest rally was taken out in Quetta and a protest was held against the killing of enforced missing persons in fake encounters, while the Baloch Solidarity Committee issued a statement of protest demonstration in Hub. According to the statement, the Baloch Solidarity Committee Karachi and the Baloch Solidarity Committee Hub will jointly protest against the current “Kill and dump” policy in Pak-occupied-Balochistan.
This incident serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing human rights violations in Pak-occupied-Balochistan, where extrajudicial killings by Pak Army have become a matter of grave concern. The CTD’s alleged involvement in this case further raises questions about the accountability of law enforcement agencies in the region.
The international community must take notice of the deteriorating human rights situation in Pak-occupied-Balochistan and urge their authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into Baluch Molla Bakhsh’s killing. The perpetrators must be brought to justice, and concrete measures must be taken to prevent such extrajudicial killings from happening again.