New Delhi: A week after it opened fire on Pashtun protestors near the border with Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army has been accused of injuring 14 Baloch protestors. This came a day before an activist group planned to discuss the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, at a gathering in Gwadar.
Pakistan authorities have not yet confirmed any deaths.
The ‘Baloch Raji Muchi’ (Baloch National Gathering) was due to be held in Gwadar on 28 July. Gwadar is home to a deep sea port that is strategically located at the cross-junction of international shipping and oil trade routes.
Balochistan is run by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which emerged as the single largest party in the province after February’s elections.
There are now calls for PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and President Asif Ali Zardari to provide answers over claims that security forces opened fire on people in Matsung, a town located in Balochistan.
Where are you @BBhuttoZardari ? Where are you @AAliZardari ? Who ordered all this? pic.twitter.com/5V4FB9qNxO
— Hamid Mir حامد میر (@HamidMirPAK) July 27, 2024
On Saturday, the Balochistan government said there were “unconfirmed rumours of firing by security forces” in Matsung, according to a report in Pakistani daily Dawn.
According to the report, Kalat Deputy Commissioner Shayak Baloch claims the convoy attacked a checkpoint near Matsung.
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), an activist group led by 31-year-old Mahrang Baloch, was organising Sunday’s rally. Politicians, activists and others were invited to join from across the country to discuss the issue of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan.
In a post on X, the activist group accused security forces and police of firing at convoys enroute to ‘Baloch Raji Machi’.
There are now calls for PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and President Asif Ali Zardari, whose party govern the province, to provide information on “who ordered it?”
On 19 July, a protest in Bannu, located 40 km from the border with Afghanistan, turned violent during which security forces and protestors clashed. The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which identifies as a Pashtun human rights grouping based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was protesting a planned operation by the Pakistan military to root out militants along the Afghan border.
The clash between protestors and police came just days after eight Pakistani security personnel were killed after militants attacked a military base at Bannu Cantonment.
Clashes between the Pakistan army and PTM supporters are not new. In May 2019, 13 people were killed and multiple injured at Kharqamar checkpoint, where PTM activists were holding a protest. The army subsequently filed an FIR against the Pashtun group’s leaders but in late 2020, the case was withdrawn.
The Kharqamar checkpoint is located about 10 miles from the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has also been a hotbed of such clashes over the past two decades as there are separatists who accuse the federation of exploiting the province’s wealth.
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