Since the Baloch Liberation Army’s (BLA) hijacking of the Jaffar Express in March 2025, Pakistan has further intensified reliance on state-sponsored militias to quell Baloch separatist protests. Intelligence sources indicate that the Pakistan Army has stretched the remit of its so-called death squads like the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Aman Balochistan while taking pains to reduce visible army presence to maintain plausible deniability and shun international opprobrium.
According to these sources, this approach echoes Pakistan’s prior counterinsurgency model used in Kashmir, aiming to reduce army casualties. Military and intelligence institutions predominantly led by Punjabis, including the Frontier Corps (FC) and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are reportedly arming and financing tribal leaders like Shafiq Mengal, who heads the Musallah Defah Tanzeem, to eliminate suspected BLA sympathisers.
These militia forces are said to be acting with impunity committing extortion, kidnappings, and killings across the province. Civilians are often kidnapped by unknown individuals in unmarked cars from residences, bazaars, or on the streets during demonstrations. There are no official records of these detentions, and families are left ignorant of their relatives’ destinies.
Following detention, the kidnapped are said to be taken to clandestine centers most of the time within FC camps or ISI-run safe houses where they undergo extreme means of torture such as electric shock and physical assault. In some cases, detainees are executed in captivity; others are murdered in fake encounters. Bodies, in most cases with markings of bullets, burns, and broken bones, are disposed of in remote areas as a message to the locals.
Though the infamous ‘kill-and-dump’ policy is not a fresh trend in Balochistan, intelligence officials say its intensity has sharply risen. Human rights groups such as the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) have documented more than 7,000 enforced disappearances since 2004. In only November 2024 alone, 98 new cases of enforced disappearance were reported, and in the first four months of 2025 alone, 51 extrajudicial killings were reported, nearly equal to the number of 68 total reported across all of 2024. Among the 13 bodies found in April were Nizam and Abu Bakar.
Intelligence experts claim that the use of these death squads is two-fold: it is aimed at eliminating resistance and protecting the Pakistani army from direct responsibility for the increasing human rights abuses, among them torture and murder.
