THE HRCP’s latest fact-finding report confirms what many in Balochistan have alleged for years: the lack of governance and the violation of people’s rights in the province. The report has indicated that enforced disappearances, custodial killings and harassment of families in the province are deliberate. The state’s reluctance to end this practice — despite Supreme Court directives and repeated public outcry — exposes a disregard for constitutional rights and human dignity. Moreover, the use of contentious laws like the Anti-Terrorism (Balochistan Amendment) Act, 2025, which permits 90-day detentions without charge, has deepened alienation in the province. At the other end, peaceful activists are branded as threats to national security while actual militant violence runs rampant.

The rot does not stop there. Elections, as the HRCP points out, have become a farce, with nationalist and progressive parties sidelined through alleged rigging and legal blacklists. The report documents how student leaders and opposition figures are persecuted, jailed, or worse, disappeared. It is no surprise the province suffers from a political vacuum in which unelected actors wield unchecked power and youth live in despair or exile. This is tantamount to state failure. The HRCP also asserts that the province’s mineral wealth is extracted for the benefit of outsiders, while its people are denied education, jobs and representation, and that decisions taken by elected assemblies are routed through controversial investment bodies. All this is seen as a provocation that will only deepen the insurgency. The state must embark on a radical course correction. Repressive laws must be amended or repealed, political freedoms restored, parallel power structures dismantled and security agencies held to account. The people of Balochistan deserve justice, which will, among other things, turn the restive youth away from the militants. The Balochistan issue is one of consequence and must be handled with care.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2025