Collateral Lives: Violence as Governance in Balochistan
With brutal torture and disappearances, the Pakistani state continues colonial strategies of collective punishment in Balochistan
Sit-in to demand justice for Zareef and other forcibly disappeared Baloch, held in Turbat, Balochistan, Dec 2024. Image: Hazaran Rahim Dad.
In the 1970s, Ahmed Kurd and Asad Mengal were abducted from Karachi. Asad was the son of then-chief minister of Balochistan, Sardar Attaullah Mengal. At the time, their disappearance was not widely understood as a form of collective punishment. But the repeated nature of such cases has revealed a consistent pattern. Asad was targeted to pressure his father; he remains missing to this day. Even his brother, Sardar Akhtar Mengal—an influential tribal leader and later chief minister—was unable to trace Asad’s whereabouts or recover his body. What hope then remains for ordinary Baloch people?
What hope for Bashir and Arman whose mothers marched to Islamabad in the recent Long March, only to receive their mutilated bodies—victims of an alleged ‘encounter’ with security forces?
Or for Miandad, a 30-year-old, shot dead by Pakistan’s coast guards for holding a toy pistol?
Or for Israr Rashid, a teenage nurse, killed merely for passing by a military checkpoint, on suspicion of being involved in an attack.
Or for Allah Dad, a young intellectual, targeted for the potential threat his intellect posed—much like other great minds before him, like Saba Dashtyari and Zahid Askani? And what about Karim, a teenage poet, gunned down for reciting resistance poetry? The names are countless, the stories unending.
Among the many lives shaped by this brutal reality is that of Zareef, a former footballer from a sparsely populated village on the periphery of the world map—Dazin, in district Tump, just 85 kilometers from Turbat city.
Forty-six-year-old Zareef, son of Homar, lived a simple life devoted to football and gardening in his orchard. A celebrated local player, he had won several medals and continued playing for the Tump team even after marriage. His home was filled with football stories. Though he had retired from playing a few years ago, his passion never faded—until the night of December 26, 2024. Zareef and his daughter Mahjan had no reason to believe they would be punished for a crime they didn’t commit. That night, Zareef’s right to life was taken forever. Mahjan lost her father. Shakila lost her husband. All under collective punishment.
Zareef Baloch, son of Homar - forcibly disappeared and tortured to death by Pakistani security services from District Tump in Balochistan, in December 2024. Image: Hazaran Rahim Dad
A Daughter’s Last Glimpse of Her Father
It was 10 o’clock, on one of the coldest nights of the year. On December 26, 2024, Zareef’s wife Shakila, a forty-year-old health worker, heard a thunderous noise at the gate of her home. Zareef had complained of a headache earlier and taken some tablets; he was fast asleep. The noise stirred both Shakila and their seventeen-year-old daughter, Mahjan, from their rooms. As they stepped outside, they spotted a drone camera hovering over their compound. Their eyes remained fixed on it until the sudden crack of gunfire shattered the night, jolting Zareef awake.
Mahjan ran to her father, urging him not to come outside—the security forces were here. But Zareef was already awake and had stepped out of the room. As they watched, the FC stormed in, rifles raised, torches cutting through the darkness. Shakila and Mahjan retreated to their room, standing tense by the door. Zareef, believing it to be another routine raid, remained standing in the compound, watching in silence.
The Major of Tump Camp entered the veranda and struck Shakila’s shoulder with the butt of his rifle, hitting her with force. She collapsed to the ground, letting out a slow, pained cry in Balochi, "Allah Rahm – God have mercy." The Major sneered, "Our forces have been attacked, and you people are responsible.” Previously, whenever the FC stormed their home, they would ask about Zareef. Sometimes they took him for questioning, only to release him later the same day. But this time, they didn’t ask. Perhaps they had already seen him standing across the compound.
They ordered Mahjan and her mother to go inside their rooms. As they complied, the forces returned and demanded, "Get out!" And then smashed their PTCL internet connection. There are no internet services in Tump, except fibre-optic internet supplied by PTCL (the national telecommunications service).
With only two rooms in the house, they separated Shakila and Mahjan in each, before locking them from the outside.
Shakila’s uncle, Liaquat, who has a drug addiction, rushed into their compund upon hearing gunfire. Seeing his condition, the forces spared him, but he, too, had once been forcibly disappeared for three months. They went straight to Zareef.
They switched off their torches. Mahjan watched from her window as the soldiers surrounded her father. ‘I pounded on the door—no one came. I knocked harder on the window, my fists aching against the cold iron, and saw my father. He turned his gaze toward me but said nothing. Silent, he went with them. Later I was embarrassed by my desperate knocking. My father would definitely ask me about it, later. She thought. He would surely say, ‘You shouldn’t have knocked so hard. It must have hurt you.’
When the forces left, Liaquat came and unlocked their doors.
Mahjan is Zareef’s only daughter. Her two brothers, Homar and Adnan, were away at a wedding. When they returned, they were met with crushing news—their father had been forcibly disappeared.
They couldn’t inform anyone that night—phone networks had been shut, and their internet disconnected. They waited until morning when the network finally returned to inform their relatives.
The next day, December 27, around noon, the forces returned along with the major. They asked about Zareef’s youngest child, Homar. Homar was Zareef’s father’s name, and when he passed away, Zareef named his son after him. But in the house, everyone simply called him "Baba." He was a twelve-year-old boy.
At that moment, Baba was at a relative’s house.
"Call him or else, I will sit here until he comes. If we see Baba, we will shoot him in front of your eyes,” the Major warned.
Shakila looked at him and said, "You already have his father. Isn’t that enough? They didn’t respond; instead, they just turned and left.
Brute Force, Brutal Torture
That same evening, around 4 PM, a loud knock echoed at Shakila’s gate. They immediately thought it was the FC, returning for Baba. A cousin went to open the gate.
But it was a neighbour, crying. "Where is Shakila?" she asked urgently.
Dazin, in District Tump, Balochistan where Zareef lived with his family. Image: Hazaran Rahim Dad
She sobbed, "Zareef has been dumped near our wall."
Zareef’s younger sister, who was nearby, ran over, barefoot. The neighbour clung to Shakila, but unsure if her husband had been released alive, unconscious, or worse, Shakila felt her body weaken. The neighbour’s cries made the truth sink in—before she could react, she lost consciousness.
Mahjan thought her father was just unconscious from being tortured. Panicking, she rushed towards the neighbour’s house—barefoot, without her chadar on her head.
Her brother, Adnan, saw her and grabbed her arm. “Are you in your senses?” He scolded.
Just then, Adnan’s phone rang. It was a phone call from the neighbourhood. The same chilling words echoed through the line: "Your father has been dumped."
Adnan’s grip on Mahjan tightened. He pulled her into a firm embrace. "Wait here," he said. "I will bring Abba."
"What happened, Adnan? Tell me! Abba is alright, right?" Mahjan pleaded, her voice trembling.
Adnan didn’t answer. His hold on her lingered for a moment before he let go. "I will bring him," he repeated and hurried out.
Gulshan, Zareef’s sister, was already there when she saw him, her brother, lying in the compound of their neighbour’s house, near their orchard. . His body was positioned in a way that made it clear he had been thrown there.
She rushed to him. His mouth was slightly open, his tongue hanging out. A cold dread gripped her as she knelt beside him, cradling his head in her lap. Then she saw it—a stone lodged inside his mouth.
Her hands trembled as she pulled it out. His tongue felt stiff, unnatural. She tried to push it back, as if that could bring him back. Sand clung to his lips, his face. She wiped it away with her sleeve. "I didn’t want people to see my brother this way," she later said.
His palms—both of them—were filled with thorns. His nose was bent at an odd angle, broken. Gulshan gently pressed it back into place, trying to restore some dignity to his face before others arrived.
His clothes weren’t bloodied, but his body told another story. His chest and back bore the deep, unmistakable imprints of an iron press. His shoulders were bruised, marked with the force of rifle butts, or maybe sticks. When they received his body, it wasn’t swollen. But the wounds were there.
Both of his kidney areas had drill marks—deep, cruel holes bored into him. They had been hastily plastered over. His tongue—cut. A scissor had severed it. His feet were covered in marks from sticks. Both his legs were fractured.
There were injection marks on both his shoulders. A doctor in Tump later confirmed it—those injections were poisonous. They had killed him.
Dumped in Silence
It was Friday afternoon. The neighbours had finished their prayers, had lunch, and were resting indoors.
Their rooms were at a significant distance from their orchard but in the same compound.
One of them, who had eaten lunch late, stepped out to wash his hands. That’s when he saw Zareef’s body lying there.
They hadn’t heard the sound of any veicle—only silence. But on their compound, there were boot prints, marking a path.
"They must have carried his body in silence… and then thrown him here."
There was a section in their wall that was slightly lower than the rest.
"Maybe they jumped over it… maybe that’s how they brought his body in."
The family transported Zareef’s corpse to the Rural Health Clinic (RHC) in Tump, where they learned that Zareef had been killed by poisoning. Seeking justice, they went to the Tump police station to file an FIR (First Information Report), but the SHO (Station House Officer) refused to register their complaint.
A Daughter's Revolt
“They committed one tyranny by killing my father in this brutal way. It would be a second tyranny if we buried him in silence.”
Mahjan stood frozen in the compound, numb, as people poured in. They had brought her father’s lifeless body.
Her mother, her brothers, her aunts and uncles – all were inconsolable, crying, collapsing, then regaining consciousness, only to break again. People around them tried to hold them up, tried consoling them, but their grief was too heavy to be carried.
Nearby, two women whispered about the torture Zareef had endured. Mahjan's uncle had told her otherwise—that her father had died of a cardiac arrest, hoping to shield her from the horror of his mutilated body. But she had heard the women.
"No," she murmured, her voice trembling. “They were saying something else..."
A sudden, desperate urgency overtook her. She turned towards her father’s body. Her uncle and aunt tried holding her back. But Mahjan screamed.
"I want to see his body! His wounds! I want to keep them in my heart. I don’t want his wounds to be forgotten. Let me remember them. Let me have hate for those who caused them.” She pushed past everyone. The moment her eyes fell on her father—his battered, lifeless form—her breath caught in her throat.
A terrible scream tore from her chest. And then—darkness.
Mahjan collapsed.
When Mahjan regained consciousness, a crushing realization settled over her.
"I realized then—their tyranny was real, standing right in front of me."
Her voice trembled as she spoke. "I had seen their war crimes before—when they dragged my father like an animal before my eyes. But because he always returned, I learned to adjust, to endure. I had seen their oppression when they raided our home, when they pointed their guns at us, when they tore through our lives over and over again. But this time…" her voice broke, "...this time, they did the last thing they could. They killed my father like this."
And that was the moment Mahjan made her decision.
"They committed one tyranny by killing my father in this brutal way. It would be a second tyranny if we buried him in silence."
She turned to her family. "I am taking my father to Turbat—for protest."
"You are not in your senses!" her uncle, Zareef’s brother,scolded.
Mahjan's voice did not waver. "I cannot commit a second tyranny against my father."
"We won’t come," her uncle warned.
"Then I will take him alone," Mahjan declared. "But I will not bury him in silence."
His uncle looked at her and said, "You are crying—how will you protest for him?"
Mahjan wiped her tears, straightened her posture, and replied, "I won’t cry."
Mahjan, with pictures of her father Zareef, leading a protest in Turbat against his killing. Image: Hazaran Rahim Dad
A Body Held Hostage
The whole family agreed to protest. Their neighbuurs stood by them. After Maghrib prayers, they took the body and with four vehicles, set off for Turbat.
But at Hasia Abad in Tump, an FC checkpoint, they were stopped. The entire road was completely sealed, both at exit and entry points. The FC soldiers told them, "We have orders to stop you”. An hour later, the Major arrived with other officers in eight FC vehicles.
He summoned Mahjan’s uncle and told him, "We did not kill Zareef."
Mahjan’s uncle stared at him and said, "If you didn’t kill him, then tell me—who took him? You came with your forces and abducted him."
The Major’s tone turned sharp. "Send these women back home," he warned. “Or we will beat them.” The Assistant Commissioner (AC) of District Tump, who was present, interrupted, "You should not threaten to beat women.”
Two of Zareef’s cousins had already been forcibly disappeared. An officer addressed Mahjan’s uncle, "If you don’t turn back, we won’t release them."
Mahjan’s uncle didn’t flinch. “That’s up to you,” he said. "No one is more precious than my brother."
On the cold, dark road at Hasia Abad, their protest continued.
At 3 AM on December 28, Adnan approached Mahjan. His voice was hesitant, almost pleading. "Abba’s body... it’s changing shape. It’s swollen now."
Mahjan didn’t lift her gaze. "Doesn’t matter," she said.
Half an hour later, her uncle came. His voice was tight with urgency. "Mahjan, ‘zahre aap’ is coming from his mouth... now his nose is bleeding."
Mahjan still sat beside the vehicle, where her father’s lifeless body lay.
By 5 AM, Adnan returned, desperation in his eyes. "Please don’t be insistent. The body... it’s changing more. Have mercy on father."
Mahjan’s grip on the edge of the vehicle tightened. "I am having mercy on him," she said, her voice unshaken. "That’s why I’m sitting here. I cannot pick up another body. Tomorrow, they will give me your body, and after that, Baba’s body. I don’t want to just collect the bodies of my beloved. I will continue the protest."
The night stretched into morning, then noon, but the FC blockade remained, sealing off the road.
Buried After 20 Hours—But Not in Silence
Zareef’s body lay on the asphalt of Hasia Abad. At 3 PM, Mahjan went to check on her father’s body.
"I saw my father… his body was swollen beyond recognition. If we continued sitting here, it would burst right before my eyes. That moment, I decided—we must bury him. His body had turned purple. Perhaps it was the poisonous injections."
For twenty hours, the family protested at Hasia Abad check post. Twenty hours of grief, rage, and resistance.
Then, only with the assurance by Zareef’s family that Mahjan would carry the protest forward, they moved back to Dazin, to bury Zareef.
At 7 PM, after Maghrib prayers, they laid him to rest in his hometown.
"I kept my father’s body for so long, even when I knew it was changing... Because those were my last moments with him. I knew I wouldn’t have him again."
She held on, even when his body swelled, even when his color changed.
"As long as I could sit with him, even if he was lifeless, I did."
"They should have given me hope, like Sammi Deen."
"I would have searched for him, from roads to camps."
But they didn’t.
"They crushed my hopes within a day."
“At Fida Chowk, she sat in protest for ten days —her grief turning into resistance. ”
He was buried around 7:30 PM, but Mahjan did not stay home to mourn in silence. That very night, she traveled to Turbat, determined to demand justice for her father’s killing. At Fida Chowk, she sat in protest for ten days —her grief turning into resistance.
The Turbat sit-in continued for 10 days and official negotiations were held with representatives of the state including Assistant commissioner of Turbat and the deputy superintendent of police (DSP), while the District Policy Offer (DPO) remained in his car. It was agreed that Mahjan’s case would be filed in court, offering a semblance of legal recourse.
Mahjan’s demands were clear: an FIR against the Mand Brigadier and the Tump Major, whom she accused of her father’s murder. This demand was never accepted. She also demanded the release of three other forcibly disappeared family members. Only two have since been released – Rasool Jan remains missing, now for two years, even though Mahjan was assured he would be freed within 24 hours of ending her sit-in.
Her final demand was that security forces and intelligence agencies stop harassing her family. While they no longer raid their home, their presence remains—vehicles appear outside their gate, lingering before driving away.
Medals and trophies won by Zareef, a celebrated local football player. Image: Hazaran Rahim Dad
Can a System That Kills Ever Give Justice?
“A system that has already failed Mahjan by killing her father—how would it ever give her justice?”
On February 10, 2025, Mahjan was scheduled to appear before the court, where an investigative team had been assigned to her case. Despite her repeated attempts to reach out, she received no response from them. It wasn’t until February 16—after persistent calls—that the investigative team finally visited her home and the neighbour’s house where her father’s body had been found.
SHO Khatir, the head of the team, conducted a brief survey, but after that, Mahjan was never summoned to court again. When she inquired about the case, a lawyer informed her that it had been quietly dropped. The investigative team concluded that the FC bore no responsibility for her father’s killing.
"A system that has already failed Mahjan by killing her father—how would it ever give her justice?" her mother, Shakila, said.
Neighbours and relatives who stood beside Mahjan during her ten-day sit-in at Fida Chowk are now facing quiet retaliation. Their tokens for border trade—their only source of income—have been seized by the administration. The border-trade token system, introduced by military institutions in 2021, was meant to regulate and control trade between Pakistan and Iran, though historically, this trade has existed informally. Under this system, traders receive only one token per month.
Zareef’s brother, Mohammad Assa, who protested alongside Mahjan, is a government employee working as a clerk at the AC office in Tump. His salary has been withheld. And Mahjan’s legal case, the fight she waged in court for justice, has been dismissed. Adnan had come to Pakistan for his wedding—everything was planned. The date was set for January 1st, 2025 and the family had been preparing for the celebration. Instead of celebrating, they were forced into mourning. The wedding was called off and Adnan returned to Dubai, where he works as a labourer.
Now, in their house, only Mahjan and her mother, Shakila, remain—without a father, without a brother, without the presence of any man. Twelve-year-old Homar had to quit school. Shakila, fearing for his safety, sent him to live with her sister in the Gulf. The young child will now grow up without a father and a mother.
Dr Mahrang Baloch of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) has led thousands of women across Balochistan in protest against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings across the province. She has been jailed on charges of terrorism and sedition since March 2025. Image: The Wire
The Global Playbook of Collective Punishment
In Balochistan, entire communities face punitive actions for the alleged offences of a few—through military raids, communication blackouts, property destruction, and torture.
Zareef’s case is one of collective punishment, not just because those who supported Mahjan are now facing economic repercussions, but because it traces back to a pattern of persecution the family has endured since 2019—or perhaps even earlier. The years of harassment, repeated raids, abductions, and now Zareef’s brutal killing are not isolated incidents; they are part of a sustained campaign of repression against the family.
Collective punishment is the imposition of sanctions on an entire group or community for actions allegedly committed by some of its members. It targets individuals who bear no responsibility. Often, those punished have no direct ties to the perpetrator beyond shared geography and lack control over their actions. Collective punishment is prohibited under international law in both international and non-international armed conflicts, specifically by Common Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 4 of Additional Protocol II.
The use of collective punishment against populations has been a mainstay of counter-insurgency doctrine across the world. Historically, it has enabled state reprisal against families, communities and entire populations in a drive to ‘win’ a conflict, military or otherwise, at all costs.
Balochistan has long been gripped by a nationalist insurgency against the Pakistani state, rooted in its forceful annexation in 1948. Since then, repeated uprisings have demanded autonomy or independence. Fearing a resurgence and the idea of a unified Balochistan, the state has tightened its grip through heavy militarisation. This has led to widespread human rights abuses—where even suspected links to insurgents can result in arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings as part of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign.
Violence as Governance
Dr Mahvish Ahmad, Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Politics at the London School of Economics (LSE) explains how the state’s monopoly over violence is used to legitimize practices of collective punishment.
“In Balochistan, collective punishment has been an extension of British colonial policy, continued by the Pakistani state almost since its inception.”
"States are classically defined as the only entity that can legally use violence.” She says. “Often, in Pakistan but really everywhere in the world, this idea that the violence of military and police is legitimate is used repeatedly to mask s [non-state groups]ed violence against groups. They [non-state groups] get labelled as terrorists, traitors, muggers, criminals, or something else, andcet, in turn, makes it look like the state’s violence is legitimate.”
In Balochistan, collective punishment has been an extension of British colonial policy, continued by the Pakistani state almost since its inception. The practice was honed as part of Cold War-era ‘counter-insurgency’ campaigns and into the present, especially after 9/11.
From 1973 to 1977, the Balochistan People’s Liberation Front (BPLF), formerly known as Parari, launched an insurgency against Pakistan’s central government after the dismissal of Balochistan’s elected government. The military’s subsequent crackdown on Baloch political leaders and activists led to widespread targeting of entire communities, many of whom were not involved in the insurgency.
This insurgency and the state’s violent response laid the groundwork for widespread collective punishment in Balochistan. Initially a Cold War-era counter-insurgency tactic, it has since become a tool of state control, punishing entire communities for the actions of a few. This ongoing strategy, justified under national security, continues to fuel the suffering and repression of the Baloch people.
As Ahmad describes, “Practices of collective punishment were enshrined in colonial law, famously the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) and the Murderous Outrages Act, both of which were enacted in Balochistan. The policy of assuming everyone was guilty and should be punished if just one member of the community committed a perceived wrongdoing was legalized under these legislations. Guilt, of course, was not established in courts of law, just assumed by political agents (appointed for indirect rule).”
The British Raj pursued indirect rule in large parts of Balochistan, paying salaries to select sardars, motabirs, and mirs to ensure minimal colonial investment but maximum indirect control. This policy continued under post-colonial Pakistan until the formal abolition of the sardari system in the 1970s. “Yet, though the policy was legally ended, it continued in practice, as we see when certain members of the provincial assembly, or ministers, and even caretaker prime ministers are selected with the full backing of military interests,” says Ahmad. “Collective punishment becomes the primary way that the colonial state—past and present—associates itself with Balochistan."
Before Zareef’s brutal murder, the family’s harassment by security forces was routine. Every two days, they would raid the house—searching, interrogating, and then leaving, only to return again. During the Baloch Raji Muchi (National Gathering), called by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, the FC, along with a colonel and Major from Tump camp, entered their home. They ordered Shakila to go door to door in Tump and tell people not to join the gathering. She refused, saying “You can stop me from going, but I cannot make others stay.”
Tump’s Major would invade their space without hesitation. He would sit on their bed, toss his number carelessly around the room, even in the kitchen. The colonel would stand outside while he roamed freely inside. Whenever a neighbour or relative disappeared, Major would offer the same deal: Take my number. Share the details. Maybe your people will be released.
Mahjan still remembers the day she came out of the bathroom to find two FC personnel and Major himself sitting on her bed. She screamed and ran out of the room.
Shakila recalls the days when disappearances were common in her neighbourhood—so frequent that fear became a way of life. Her eldest son (name withheld for privacy concerns) was just fifteen years old at the time, a footballer like his father. One day, after returning from a match, he found himself caught in the middle of a military operation. She doesn’t remember the exact year, but she remembers his fear.
He ran. The forces chased him. Being a footballer, he was fast. He jumped over a wall, but as he landed, his head struck a wooden plank. He lost consciousness. When he woke up, he was in their custody.
“They beat him,” Shakila says. “They told him he had made their ten soldiers run.”
Three days later, they released him. But something in him had changed. “I don’t know if that was what made him leave,” she says. “I don’t know what happened. But some time later, he was gone.” (He had joined the Baloch insurgency.)
It was 2019. She remembers that year clearly—not just because her son never returned, but because security forces raided their house when the family was in Karachi. Everything was looted. Her gold ring was gone. The TV was smashed. “We had nothing left,” she says. “Whatever wasn’t stolen was broken.”
A week before Zareef’s murder, the forces came to their house. This time, they asked for Baba’s mobile phone. The child, too young to understand the weight of their presence, handed it over but didn’t let go without a question.
“If you’re taking it, you won’t return it,” he said. “So, I will come with you. Once you check it, give it back to me.”
But they only took the mobile and left.
According to Abdullah Abbas, Executive Director of the Human Rights Council of Balochistan (HRCB), Zareef’s killing is not an isolated tragedy but a symptom of a broader, entrenched system of state violence. “This particular form of collective punishment has continued for nearly two decades,” Abbas said, tracing its roots to the post-2000 crackdown on political activists carried out under the pretext of national security.
That period gave rise to what would later become known as the “kill and dump” policy—a strategy of enforced disappearances followed by the mutilated bodies of abductees ‘dumped’ in desolate landscapes. “Once someone was abducted and killed, their families—especially sons and brothers—came under surveillance,” he explained. For many, there were only two choices: flee the country or head for the mountains to join armed groups. “Most didn’t have the means to escape. So the mountains became the last refuge.”
Abbas outlined a chilling pattern: if the state couldn’t capture an activist or insurgent, it would go after their families. “Raids would begin with looting. Women’s clothing, jewelry, rations—nothing was spared. Homes were burnt to the ground.” The next phase was more targeted: “Relatives were abducted, tortured, and pressured to convince their wanted family members to surrender. Eventually, people began to anticipate what came next. Picking up arms became, for many, the only way to survive.”
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this strategy was the forced recruitment of informants. “A relative would be picked up, tortured for weeks, and then released on the condition that they work for the military. Even then, the harassment never stopped. Some joined militant groups not because of ideology, but because they had no other choice.”
“Collective punishment is not just policy,” explains Abbas. “It’s a system. In Balochistan, in most cases, those targeted often had no political history. Their only crime was a blood relation.”
Hazaran Rahim Dad is a Balochistan-based journalist and researcher, with a background in English literature. Her work focuses on the lived experiences of the Baloch people and their socio-political struggles in Pakistan.