Quetta, Feb 14 (IANS) As violence against civilians continues to mount across Balochistan province in Pakistan, a leading human rights organisation on Saturday brought to light the extrajudicial killing of another Baloch youth by the country’s forces.

These latest incidents come against the backdrop of a growing wave of targetted killings and enforced disappearances across the province.

Human rights body Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) revealed that 25-year-old Kamal Dad, a driver, was killed by a Pakistan-backed death squad in the Kontani region in Gwadar district in Balochistan on February 12.

“Kamal Dad had previously been forcibly disappeared in 2025 and was released after one month of illegal detention. Following his release, he survived an assassination attempt in Fakir Colony, where he sustained injuries. Despite the earlier attempt on his life, no protection or legal action was taken against those responsible,” the BYC stated.

Condemning the incident, the BYC stated that the killing of Kamal demonstrates the alarming continuity of violence faced by individuals across the province who have previously survived enforced disappearance.

“This act constitutes a violation of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees the inherent right to life and prohibits arbitrary deprivation of life,” the rights body stressed.

“The repeated targetting of a previously disappeared individual further underscores the systematic violence and the complete absence of accountability,” it added.

The BYC called upon international human rights organisations, the United Nations mechanisms, and global civil society to take immediate notice of the ongoing human rights violations in Balochistan to prevent further loss of innocent lives and to uphold fundamental human rights.

Meanwhile, in its latest annual human rights report titled “A Year of Repression: Balochistan 2025,” Paank documented widespread human rights violations across the province in 2025.

The report recorded 1,355 cases of enforced disappearances, 225 extrajudicial killings, repeated aerial attacks on civilian areas in the province, while alleging systematic misuse of legal and administrative measures to suppress peaceful civic movements and restrictions on information aimed at silencing victims’ families and witnesses.

“Enforced disappearance remains the primary instrument of state-sponsored terror in Balochistan. As defined under international law, these acts constitute a crime against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population,” Paank stated.

“The discovery of 225 bodies of previously disappeared persons in 2025 confirms the ongoing and brutal reality of the ‘kill and dump’ policy. This strategy involves the execution of detainees in custody, followed by the abandonment of their mutilated remains in desolate areas, often accompanied by labels designating them as ‘terrorists’ or ‘insurgents’ to retroactively justify their deaths,” it added.

As per the findings of Paank, Pakistan’s apparatus— primarily the Pakistani military, its multifaceted intelligence agencies, and the paramilitary Frontier Corps—“has intensified its campaign against the Baloch population through a strategic combination of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and the novel deployment of sophisticated aerial warfare technology against civilian populations.”

–IANS

scor/as