Quetta: The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) on Thursday condemned the killing of Chairman Zubair Baloch in Dalbandin, calling it an extrajudicial act by Pakistan’s security forces and describing it as part of an ongoing policy of Baloch genocide.
The socio-political rights group, in a press statement, said the incident reflects the height of state repression and brutality against Baloch political activists, calling it another link in the chain of violence aimed at silencing political voices through force rather than dialogue. “Balochistan has been turned into a slaughterhouse over the past few years. Enforced disappearances of political activists, false charges, harassment and extrajudicial killings have become routine,” the statement added.
Declaring state actions against Baloch activists as a systematic policy, the group said that within a span of a week, four people were killed in staged encounters, three were returned as mutilated bodies after enforced disappearances and now the extrajudicial killing of Zubair Baloch has been covered up by claims of an encounter. “All these incidents form part of a systematic policy that crushes dissent and forces the Baloch people to live in an atmosphere of fear,” the group further said.
Paying tribute to the slain student leader, Zubair Baloch, the group asserted that he was a political activist, former chairman of BSO (Pajjar), a lawyer and a powerful political voice. “He consistently stood against human rights violations, enforced disappearances and violations of basic rights in Balochistan. His killing is not merely the loss of an individual life but a manifestation of intensified state repression against Baloch political workers,” the statement added.
The BYC emphasized that the killing of Chairman Zubair Baloch is a loss not only for an individual but for the entire Baloch nation. History shows that such crimes and atrocities have never succeeded in silencing the public voice and will not succeed in the future. The group urged the Baloch people not to remain silent in the face of state oppression. “Silence in the face of repression and atrocities is equivalent to collective death, and the state wishes for the Baloch people to remain silent about this oppression. Both theory and practice have proven that when people remain silent against state repression, it only intensifies. The end of state repression is possible only through popular resistance,” the statement concluded.
