QUETTA, BALOCHSITAN: A year after his disappearance, relatives say they were never told where he was buried and reject official claims about his death.
The family of Imran Ali has demanded that authorities disclose the location of his grave, exhume and identify his remains through an independent DNA examination and return his body to relatives for burial rejecting the official account of his death.
In a statement, the family said Imran Ali was forcibly disappeared by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Quetta on August 27, 2025. Relatives said they received no information about his whereabouts or condition for nearly a year.
According to the family, a police officer told the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances during an August 6, 2026 hearing for the first time that Imran had been killed in an armed encounter on May 23, 2026.
The officer said police took approximately one month to confirm Imran’s identity after the incident, by which point the body had reportedly decomposed and could not be preserved. He said Imran was buried without the family being informed of the grave’s location, according to the family’s account of the hearing.
The family called the explanation unacceptable.
Relatives said they later obtained, through hospital records tied to the reported date of death, a photograph showing what they identified as Imran’s blood-soaked body. They said it remains the only evidence they have received concerning his death.
The family said authorities have not provided a death certificate, forensic report, autopsy report, burial record, or any information on where he was buried.
Relatives rejected the government’s account that Imran was killed in an armed encounter, noting that he had already been in CTD custody for roughly 11 months before authorities announced his death.
They said three individuals released from detention separately told the family they had seen and met Imran while he was in custody accounts the family says raise serious questions about the official version of events and warrant an independent investigation into what happened to him in state custody.
The family reiterated earlier calls by United Nations experts for a prompt, independent and impartial investigation into the circumstances of Imran Ali’s detention, death and burial and urged accountability for those responsible.
“We demand that the authorities immediately disclose the exact location of Imran Ali’s grave, return his remains to the family and allow an independent examination to establish the facts,” the family said in its statement.
