Quetta: Pakistan Army, which launched a brutal military operation in Dera Bugti district of Balochistan on September 10, has expanded its scope and scale to several other parts of the occupied territory, engaging in extreme atrocities against the civilians.
Highlighting an alarming human rights situation, dozens of innocent local people have been either killed or illegally detained by the Pakistan Army, according to reports and activists.
The Army has mobilized tens of thousands of troops and is using heavy weaponry in the mountainous Dera Bugti district and some other areas of Balochistan as part of its operation which is marked by extreme oppression, the reports and activists say.
Even helicopter gunships are being used against the civilian Baloch people in the cordoned off areas where a total clampdown has been imposed with even Internet being stopped.
According to latest reports, the Army held a high-level meeting here tonight and orders were given to the forces to continue the military operation with more intensity (implying increased atrocities).
The military operation was launched after 6 football players were allegedly abducted in Dera Bugti area by some unknown armed men.
While the Army says the operation has been launched to trace and retrieve the football players, locals say they have nothing to do with the abduction and that the military is using this as a ruse to commit atrocities against the Baloch people.
Baloch groups and activists are making fervent appeals to international human rights organizations and other world bodies to take note of the atrocities being perpetrated by the military in Balochistan and intervene urgently.
Also read: Pakistani Army unleashes terror, kills many civilians in Balochistan Op
Baloch National Movement (BNM), one of the frontline organizations struggling for liberation of Balochistan from Pakistan, said the Pakistani army is deliberately targeting the civilian population in Dera Bugti.
“The deployment of military force and gunship helicopters against civilians has resulted in both human and financial losses, while dozens of civilians have forcibly disappeared following their arrests during the massacre,” BNM spokesman said.
He said the attack, launched on a large scale on September 10 in Dera Bugti, has been extended to other areas, including Sui, Uch, Gandoi, Sonari Matt, Sardar Pati, Bashk, Dam, and Laghar Dawan.
The use of gunship helicopters in these assaults has been confirmed, the spokesman said.
Talking about illegal detentions, he named at least a dozen of civilians who have fallen victim to the inhuman practice of the Pakistani military, wherein a person is picked up and then his or her fate is never known.
Such people either decay in some illegal detention centres of the armed forces where they are tortured brutally or they are killed in fake encounters.
Even children, girls and women are not spared by the Pakistani forces.
The spokesperson said the number of people, including minor children, who have been illegally picked up by the Pakistani armed forces during the ongoing operation is likely to be much higher than a dozen who have been identified.
“Many individuals are hesitant to report the forced disappearances of their loved ones due to fear,” he said.
The remote and mountainous terrain also limits access to the area, because of which more details of the enforced disappearances and other losses in Dera Bugti are not known yet, the BNM spokesman added.
In these mountainous regions, there are numerous small villages which are scattered, he said, adding the Pakistan army has imposed a strict cordon, isolating dozens of villages from rest of the world in terms of communication.
The spokesperson asserted that the Pakistan army’s presence is pervasive throughout Balochistan, aimed at exploiting the region’s resources.
“The Baloch people aspire to achieve independence for their land and regain control over their resources,” he said, adding “in response to this, there is an aggressive attempt to suppress them through military force.”
The spokesman said the latest aggressive military actions have centered on Sui, a region in natural gas which Pakistan has been exploiting for the past 73 years to meet the demands of Punjab and major cities in Pakistan.
“The Pakistan army has maintained absolute control over this area since the discovery of gas,” he said.
