Quetta, Aug 19 (IANS) – A Baloch youth was brutally killed in Balochistan’s Kech district by Pakistan-backed death squads, continuing the wave of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture across the province, a leading human rights organisation alleged on Tuesday.
According to Paank, the Human Rights Department of the Baloch National Movement (BNM), 22-year-old Hatim Dilpul, a resident of Tajhaban in Kech, was targeted while carrying groceries and essential supplies for his elderly grandparents in the mountainous region.
The organisation stated that death squad members opened indiscriminate fire on him, leaving his body riddled with bullets and bearing signs of a targeted execution.
“This heinous act is part of a systematic campaign of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and collective punishment against the Baloch civilian population, carried out with complete impunity,” Paank said in a statement, adding that Hatim had earlier faced threats and harassment from the same state-backed groups.
The rights body held Pakistan fully accountable and urged international human rights organisations, the United Nations, and the global community to intervene and ensure justice for Hatim Dilpul and other victims of state atrocities in Balochistan.
In a separate incident, Paank reported that Pakistani security forces forcibly disappeared a Baloch youth, Mir Yousaf Ali, from Karachi on August 17. His father said the family has suffered repeated tragedies, as three of Yousaf’s elder brothers and more than 30 relatives were abducted from Tootak in Khuzdar 15 years ago and remain missing to this day.
Meanwhile, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) highlighted an ongoing protest in Karachi, where the family of 25-year-old Zahid Ali, an International Relations student at Karachi University, has been holding a sit-in for 15 consecutive days despite heavy rain. Zahid was forcibly disappeared on July 17 along with his rickshaw, which he drove part-time to support his family.
“Even in today’s downpour, Zahid’s father, Abdul Hameed – a hepatitis patient in poor health – refused to leave the protest camp. His only demand is the safe release of his son,” the BYC said in a statement, calling on students, civil society, and citizens to stand in solidarity with the family.
