Pakistan: Revenge Killings In Balochistan – Analysis

Mon, 05 May 2025 22:58:02 +0000
World

By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

On April 30, 2025, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) cadres killed a State-backed ‘death squad’ member, Zubair Abid, in the Malikabad area of Tump tehsil(revenue unit) in the Kech District of Balochistan. In a statement issued on May 1, BLA ‘spokesperson’ Jeeyand Baloch declared that the group’s fighters had ‘neutralised’ Zubair Abid, described as a key operative of a “military-backed death squad”. The BLA accused Abid and his brother Saeed of running an armed gang that assisted the Pakistani military in “targeted killings, house raids, and road blockades” across Tump, Dazin and Gomazi.

On April 28, 2025, BLA cadres killed a key operative of ‘death squad’, Nasir Karim, during an armed assault in the Alandoor area of Buleda tehsil in Kech District. According to BLA ‘spokesperson’ Jeeyand Baloch, Karim was ambushed while travelling in a vehicle with his associates. He was reportedly killed on the spot, and one of his companions, identified as Zubair, was seriously injured. BLA alleged that Karim led a ‘death squad’ operating under the patronage of Provincial Minister Zahoor Buledi.

On April 27, 2025, BLA cadres killed one ‘death squad’ member along with one Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) cadre, while another ‘death squad’ member sustained injuries in a remote-controlled explosion in the Pasni area of Gwadar District. The ISI cadre was identified as Muhammad Nawaz, son of Muhammad Azam, a resident of Hakeem Wala near the Chorangi Joharabad tehsil of Khushab District in Punjab. While claiming responsibility for the killing, BLA ‘spokesperson’ Jeeyand Baloch stated that Muhammad Nawaz was an ISI officer stationed in Gwadar and had been under surveillance by the BLA’s intelligence wing, ‘ZIRAB’. He was targeted while travelling in a vehicle with members of a “state-backed death squad.” The BLA said that a ‘death squad’ operative, Salman, son of Munir Ahmed, resident of Babbar Shoor, Pasni, was also killed in the blast, while another operative, Shah Nazar, was injured. The group alleged that the ISI officer was being facilitated in Pasni by a local ‘death squad’ leader, identified as Balach.

In just a week, the Baloch insurgents thus eliminated at least three State-backed ‘death squad’ members. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), during the first four months of 2025 (data till May 4, 2025), 16 ‘death squad’ members have been killed and 11 injured in 16 attacks. During the corresponding period of 2024, no such incident had been reported. During the rest of 2024, 14 incidents of attacks on ‘death squad’ members, in which 27 members were killed while another eight sustained injuries, were recorded. In 2023, four ‘death squad’ members were killed in four incidents of attack. In 2022, 17 ‘death squad’ members were killed and another 10 injured in 13 incidents of attack. Five incidents of attacks were reported in 2021, resulting in four dead and eight injured.

One of the most prominent attacks on 'death squad' members in recent time was the March 5, 2025, explosion targeting the vehicle of 'death squad' leader Samad Sumalani, which killed at least four 'death squad' members and injured five in the Naal area of Khuzdar District. Sumalani was seriously wounded in the explosion. While claiming responsibility for the attack, BLA 'spokesperson' Jeeyand Baloch stated,

Sumalani has been involved in the targeted killings of Baloch people in Naal, Gresha, Panjgur and surrounding areas. He led the so-called death squad on behalf of the occupying Army, violated the sanctity of homes and directly assisted the occupying forces in the forced disappearances of individuals. The occupying Army has given Samad Sumalani free rein in drug trafficking, extortion and robbery in return for his acts of Baloch genocide. He has also been involved in seizing people's lands under the patronage of the enemy army in Raghe, Hub and Kohda. Additionally, Sumalani and his gang have forced families to marry off their daughters at gunpoint."

The elimination of ‘death squad’ members is retribution inflicted by Baloch insurgent groups on those who are partners in crime in the state’s systematic human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings of Baloch people. According to the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), Balochistan has around 7,000 missing persons. However, the Pakistan Government’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED) report claimed that there were only 454 active cases in Balochistan, as of October 2023, an assertion that created deep resentment among the Baloch people.

‘Death squads’ are local armed militia of criminals in Balochistan, patronized by the Army in carrying out enforced disappearances under the state’s ‘kill-and-dump policy’. These groups often accompany SFs during raids on the homes of political activists, dissidents and ‘pro-independence’ leaders. In exchange for their services, the SFs have given the death squads a free hand to operate throughout Balochistan, to engage in a range of illegal activities, including drug dealing, smuggling of weapons, and to run terrorist training camps and private jails, under the patronage of the intelligence agencies.

The ‘death squads’, along with SFs, have been the main executors of unattributed extrajudicial killings in Balochistan. According to the SATP database, of the 5,079 conflict-linked civilian fatalities recorded in Balochistan since 2004 (data till May 4, 2025), at least 1,666 are attributable to one or other terrorist/insurgent outfit. Of these, 655 civilian killings (363 in the South and 292 in the North) have been claimed by Baloch separatist formations, while Islamist and sectarian extremist formations – primarily Islamic State, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (*LeJ*), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (*TTP*) and Ahrar-ul-Hind (Liberators of India) – claimed responsibility for another 1,011 civilian killings, 928 in the North (mostly in and around Quetta) and 83 in the South. The remaining 3,413 civilian fatalities – 1,922 in the South and 1,491 in the North – remain 'unattributed', and are largely believed to have been the handiwork of the SFs and their death squad proxies.

Shafiq-ur-Rehman Mengal formed the first death squad in Balochistan in 2008 – the Musallah Defah Tanzeem (MDT) – with the mission of ‘defending’ the public from pro-independence groups. Mengal had the support of the Pakistan Army, and his powerful connections helped him raise his militia. Mengal initiated a reign of terror in Balochistan, killing not only suspected nationalists but also political, non-political and tribal rivals. Mengal is also ‘credited’ with the mass graves discovered in 2014 at Tootak, a rural area 55 kilometres to the north of Khuzdar, where 169 bodies were recovered.

With increasing attacks by Baloch insurgents, media reports emerged on February 27, 2025, indicating that Shafiq Mengal had been relocating his camp from Tootak to Badri in Khuzdar District, due to security concerns. Tootak is infamous for the discovery of mass graves of ‘disappeared’ victims in 2014. On February 18, 2011, SFs launched an operation in the village, rounding up all male residents. While some were eventually released, 82-year-old Mohammad Rahim Khan Qalandrani and 16 members of his family remain missing to this day. Following the operation, the Pakistani state handed control of Tootak to Shafiq Mengal, who established a stronghold in the area. Mengal allegedly set up torture cells within his camp, where innocent civilians were detained and subjected to brutal treatment. Eyewitnesses and local shepherds reported hearing the screams of detainees at night, and those who died under torture were buried in secret. In 2014, mass graves were discovered by a shepherd, uncovering the bodies in advanced stages of decomposition. This discovery led to national and international condemnation, but no concrete action was taken against Mengal.

Apart from Shafiq Mengal, several other local militia groups have been raised as death squads in Balochistan, including the Zakaria M. Hasni-led death squad in Khuzdar; the Deen Muhammad Deenu-led group in Awaran; another led by Samir Sabzal, Rashid Pathan and Sardar Aziz in Kech; the Maqbool Shambezi group in Panjgur and the Siraj Raisani group in Mastung. Siraj Raisani was killed on July 13, 2018, when a suicide bomber targeted a BAP political rally, killing at least 128 people and injuring more than 200 at Dringarh village in Mastung District.

Dr. Mahrang Baloch, the Baloch human rights activist against state oppression, noted on January 27, 2024, that state institutions and the death squads backed by them had rendered Baloch mothers forcibly "Helpless", as enforced disappearances, abductions and killings continued in the province. She posted on social media 'X',

The state institutions and their backed death squads have rendered our Baloch mothers and their entire families forcibly "Helpless". From every corner of Balochistan, they have abducted, killed, and dumped our nation's fellows. What else remains but 'Resistance' and a movement against the genocidal and brutal policies of the state? This is a people's resistance, and only the people themselves can resist to end such barbaric policies."

While death squads operate against the Baloch people under state impunity as a result of their cooperation and association with intelligence agencies and the Army, they have now come under increasing threat from Baloch militant groups. With increasing cases of 'enforced disappearances' and extra-judicial killings of Baloch people in the province, cases of retribution by Baloch insurgents against 'death squad' members have been rising. Though the death squads operate under state impunity and intelligence agencies protection, they have not been immune to Baloch wrath.

· Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management