Quetta, June 4: Using helicopter gunships and heavy artillery, the Pakistani military has been indulging in heavy shelling of various parts of occupied Balochistan, which has resulted in the killing of 17 Baloch civilians within a span of three days.

According to Baloch National Movement (BNM), which is engaged in peaceful struggle for independence of Balochistan, the crisis in the occupied region is worsening each day and sufferings of local population continue to mount.

“The Pakistan Army is indiscriminately targeting unarmed civilians in Balochistan, and the silence of the international community has drastically exacerbated the region’s multifaceted human rights crisis,” BNM said in a statement.

“In this week alone, 17 individuals have been extrajudicially killed,” it said.

“Enforced disappearances are occurring on a daily basis in the peripheral areas of Mastung, Noshkai, Zehri, Khuzdar, Kech, and Gwader districts, alongside the relentless shelling of civilian populations by gunship helicopters,” the statement said.

“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.

“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,” said the BNM statement.

It strongly condemned “this terrorism” being committed by Pakistani State.

“Pakistan is committing a systematic genocide of the Baloch nation, making international intervention an absolute necessity,” said the statement issued by BNM spokesman.

“Occupied Balochistan continues to suffer under relentless atrocities and military aggression,” he asaid.

The BNM spokesperson emphasized that since the very first day of its occupation in 1948, Balochistan has been a continuous target of Pakistan Army aggression.

“The state’s policy of crushing political forces through extreme violence and brute force remains in full effect,” he said.

“The unending cycle of enforced disappearances has socially and economically ruined thousands of families.

The spokesperson asserted that the Pakistani state is actively executing a calculated policy of Baloch genocide.

“This is a gradual, systematic process designed to destroy a nation 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 Gwader has recently come under continuous assault.

According to the statement, Pakistan Army personnel are conducting midnight raids on civilian homes in Panwan.

“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 said.

The spokesperson reiterated that the BNM is utilizing all of its resources to expose the reality of the Balochistan freedom movement to the world.

“The party urgently calls upon the international community to officially declare Balochistan a war-torn, disputed territory and to intervene immediately.

“Without the restoration of Balochistan’s independence, not only is the very survival of the Baloch nation at risk, but the establishment of strategic peace in this vital geopolitical region also remains strictly contingent upon the Baloch right to self-determination and national freedom,” it said.