Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2: EDT # 6
BANTWARA CUT 21.12
Dhruv Rathee to bring another 100cr for Dhurandhar
New Entrant - Swati Sharma of YHC fame
Meethichuri Bani Vamp
“Akshaye Khanna overshadowed Ranveer in Dhurandar”
🏏India U19 vs Pakistan U19, Final ACC Men's U19 Asia Cup 2025🏏
Kangana Ranaut Praises Dhurandhar
The Post leap episodes have been very disappointing
🏏India Women vs Sri Lanka Women, 1st T20I S L W tour of India 2025🏏
Originally posted by: return_to_hades
And now all Indians who think PCs career is over have to come to her defense because INDIA!
I know right..... 🤪😆
beakal log jo hawa me udd rahe hai.......this needs to be posted here
-----------------------------------
How Pakistan's worst kept secret cheated people of PoK for 59 years
By IANS | Updated: Aug 20, 2019, 02.30 PM IST
ANI
Nasir Khan said that the situation in Baltistan, a bigger part of greater Kashmir occupied by Pakistan, is pathetic.
New Delhi: For over 59 years, the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), including Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), were not aware of a secret agreement which decided the political contours and governance of the territory where they have been living.
Now the exiled leaders of PoK and GB are feeling the biggest betrayal at the hands of Islamabadwhich came through the secret 'Karachi Agreement' allegedly signed between three parties in 1949
The secret agreement, carrying 'forged signatures' of founder President of PoK, Sardar Ibrahim Khan, Chief of Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas and key representative of the Pakistan government Mushtak Gurmani, facilitated the forcible occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan by deceit, revealed Nasir Aziz Khan, exiled leader and chief spokesperson of United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP), a prominent political outfit in GB.
Haunted by Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for years, Nasir Khan and his party's chief Shaukat Kashmiri now live in Bern, the capital city of Switzerland.
Speaking to IANS, Nasir Khan said that the situation in Baltistan, a bigger part of greater Kashmir occupied by Pakistan, is pathetic.
"The natural resources, including goldmines, are being plundered by Chinese companies at the behest of Islamabad. People are being tortured and kidnapped by the ISI for raising their voice against such blatant loot of resources.
"Under the garb of Schedule IV (of the Terrorism Act), people are not allowed to move out of their places. The basic standard of living is far from the reach of the people who were once promised the moon by the Pakistan government," Nasir Khan said over phone from Bern.
On the Karachi Agreement (PoK) of 1949, the document now being debated across GB and PoK, Nasir Khan said that it was Pakistan's worst kept secret for decades, as it facilitated Islamabad to grab a large chunk of strategic land in GB by stealth.
"In lieu of the so called Azad Kashmir (PoK), Pakistan captured 90 per cent of Kashmir. The founder President (of PoK) Sardar Ibrahim had told our leaders that he did not sign the agreement. His signatures were forged by Muhammed Deen Taseer, the father of former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer.
"For decades, no one knew about this agreement. No one knew in Kashmir about the deal. No one knew that Pakistan had grabbed our land by deceit," said Nasir Khan, who feels that at every step the people of GB were cheated by the establishment.
Documents now reveal that the Karachi Agreement was signed on April 28, 1949, between Pakistan's then Minister Mushtak Gurnami, looking after Kashmir Affairs, Sardar Ibrahim, President of PoK, and Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas, chief of All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference.
The agreement was apparently kept as a secret by the government till 1990s. Even in 1949, when the agreement was secretly signed between the three parties, it was not reported in the media.
The agreement was revealed for the first time in the verdict of Gilgit and Baltistan by the High Court of PoK in 1990s. Later, it was published in the appendix of the Constitution of PoK in 2008. In simple words, the people of GB were cheated by the Pakistan government by keeping the agreement under wraps for 59 years.
Disturbed over the recent developments in the sub-continent and the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Nasir Khan said that armed forces (of Pakistan) were being moved from the western borders of the North West Frontier Province towards the eastern side near PoK.
"We fear that another gruesome battle will be fought on our land. The developments in Pakistan are really frightening. We fear the ISI will unleash another blow of cold blooded terror on our people," he said.
About Shaukat Kashmiri, a popular leader of GB, Nasir Khan revealed that since 1999, almost two decades, Shakaut is living in exile.
"The ISI had kidnapped him twice (in 1994 and 1998) and for a long period he was kept in Kharian, the ISI hideout near Rawalpindi. Later on US intervention, Shaukat was released by the ISI on a secluded border of Afghanistan, near the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area," Nasir Khan said.
Both Nasir Khan and Shaukat Kashmiri are mustering the support of UN agencies and the people of GB at large to expose the nexus of ISI, Pakistan Army and the government establishment in Islamabad, which for years have held democracy at ransom in Gilgit-Baltistan, the greater Kashmir area occupied by Pakistan.
UN me kisi celeb ke khilaf faltu application karne se toh achcha hi hai.......... Pakistan ko kya farak padega agar PC ko UN se nikalwa de...........koi khazana milne wala hai kya ??
beakal log beakal hi baate karte hai.........
beakal? lol...
aare these things are symbolic ...tum tension nahi lo...PC ko us ke 3-4 hazar dollar miltein rahein gaye
Nearly 1,000 dead bodies of political activists and suspected armed separatists have been found in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province over the past six years.
Activists say the figures, obtained from the human rights ministry by BBC Urdu, point to large-scale extrajudicial killings.
Relatives say most victims had been picked up by security agencies.
The government blames the dumped bodies on infighting among insurgent groups.
Thousands of people have disappeared without trace in Balochistan since a separatist insurgency gained momentum in 2007.
A military-led operation was launched in early 2005 aimed at wiping out the uprising by ethnic Baloch groups, who are fighting for a greater share of the province's resources.
According to the Federal Ministry of Human Rights, at least 936 dead bodies have been found in Balochistan since 2011.
Most of them were dumped in the regions of Quetta, Qalat, Khuzdar and Makran - areas where the separatist insurgency has its roots.
One of the more prominent cases of "kill-and-dump" is that of Jalil Reki, a political activist who lived in the Saryab neighbourhood of Quetta.
He was arrested at his residence in 2009, and his body was found two years later in the Mand area near the Iranian border, some 1,100km (680 miles) south of Quetta.
"They came to our house in three vehicles. These were the vehicles of agencies. They took away Jalil," his mother told the BBC.
"The police did not take our report. Our male relatives later approached the then chief minister's office, but we could not get any response.
"Two years later some people found his body in Mand. He had one bullet in the head and three in the chest. His arms were fractured and there were cigarette burns on his back."
Relatives of the victims believe the number may be higher.
The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) says it has recorded 1,200 cases of dumped bodies and there are many more it has not been able to document.
Nasrullah Baloch, the head of VBMP, told the BBC most of the bodies "are of those activists who have been victims of 'enforced disappearances' - people who are picked up by authorities and then just go missing."
His allegations chime with an independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) report in 2013 that noted "credible reports of continued serious human rights violations, including [enforced] disappearances of people, arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings".
Provincial government spokesman Anwarul Haq Kakar denied that state agencies were involved in such acts.
"There are several explanations. Sometimes insurgents are killed in a gunfight with law enforcement agencies but their bodies are found later," he said.
"Militant groups also fight among each other and don't bury their dead fighters. Then there are tribal feuds, organised crime and drug mafia."
There have been frequent protests by relatives of the victims and Baloch nationalist organisations over the years, while many have fled to foreign countries or safer locations within Pakistan.
Naveed Baloch, who was briefly held by the German police for the 19 December truck killings in Berlin, left Pakistan in February to "escape persecution" in his village in Mand region.
An activist of a nationalist party, he was arrested and tortured by Pakistani forces in Balochistan last year, and more recently his home in the village was raided again, his cousin, Waheed Baloch, told BBC Urdu.
Originally posted by: Dr.Hippopotamus
beakal? lol...
aare these things are symbolic ...tum tension nahi lo...PC ko us ke 3-4 hazar dollar miltein rahein gaye
tum is move ko support karke apni asliyat dikha rahe ho........... aise beakal kaam karne wale logon ko power se nikalwana chahiye......
tum is move ko support karke apni asliyat dikha rahe ho........... aise beakal kaam karne wale logon ko power se nikalwana chahiye......
i am asking u again
what the heck is beakal
Human rights violations in BalochistanFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Human rights violations in Balochistan
LocationBalochistan
DateOngoing
TargetCivilians and combatants
PerpetratorsPakistani security forcesBaloch separatist and terrorist groups
MotiveMilitary clampdown
Human rights violations in the Balochistan province of Pakistan have drawn concern in the international community,[1] being described by Human Rights Watch (HRW) as having reached epidemic proportions.[2] The violations have taken place during the ongoing Balochistan conflict between Baloch nationalists, terrorist and the Government of Pakistan over the rule of Balochistan, the largest province by land area of modern-day Pakistan.
Brad Adams the director of the Asia branch of HRW has said that the Pakistani government has not done enough to stop the violence,[3] which include torture, enforced disappearances of those suspected of either terrorism or opposing the military, ill treatment of those suspected of criminal activity, and extrajudicial killings.[4]
Main article: Balochistan conflict
Before joining Pakistan, Balochistan consisted of four princely states: Makran, Las Bela, Kharan, and Kalat. Three of these, Makran, Las Bela, and Kharan willingly joined Pakistan in 1947 during the dissolution of the British Indian Empire.[5] However, Kalat, led by the Khan of Kalat, Ahmed Yaar Khan, chose independence as this was one of the options given to all of the princely states by Clement Attlee at the time.[6] Muhammad Ali Jinnah persuaded Yar Khan to accept Pakistani rule but the Khan stalled for time. After a period of negotiations, Khan finally decided to accede to Pakistan on 27 March 1948.[7] The Khan's brother Prince Kareem Khan declared independence and fled to Afghanistan to seek aid and begin an armed struggle that failed. By June 1948, Baluchistan in whole became a part of Pakistan.[8]
There were a further three insurgencies in the region after 1948: 1958–1959, 1962–1963 and 1973–1977, and a fifth nationalistic movement which began in 2002.[9] The 1958–1959 conflict was caused by the imposition of the One Unit plan which had been implemented in 1955. This led to further resistance, and by 1957 Nauroz Khan announced his intention to secede; Pakistan declared martial law one day later.[10] Pakistan bombed separatists hideouts and deployed tanks with support from artillery. Nauroz was arrested and died while in prison, his family members were hanged for treason.[11] According to Dan Slater, pro independence feelings in East Pakistan and Balochistan increased in parity with continuing military intervention in the political arena.[10]
Main article: Missing persons (Pakistan)
According to journalist Ahmed Rashid writing in 2014, estimates of the number of disappeared in Balochistan "are between hundreds and several thousand."[12] According to Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) around 5,228 Baloch have gone missing from 2001 to 2017.[13] While according to an 8 December 2005 statement, by the then Pakistani interior minister Aftab Sherpao, an estimated 4,000 people from Balochistan were in the custody of the authorities[14] having been detained in the province between 2002–2005.[15] Of this number only 200 were taken to court and the rest were being held incommunicado according to author Manan Dwivedi writing in 2009.[15]
In December 2018, Balochistan National Party (Mengal) (BNP-M) leader, Akhtar Mengal presented a list of 5,000 missing person to the newly formed government of Imran Khan. BNP-M leaders claims that there has been a noticeable decline in enforced disappearances since BNP-M agreement with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). BNP-M also claims that hundreds of alleged victims have been reunited with their families.[16]
A senior Pakistani provincial security official claims that missing person figures are 'exaggerated', that 'in Balochistan, insurgents, immigrants who fled to Europe and even those who have been killed in military operations are declared as missing persons'.[13] Reports have shown that many people have fled the province to seek Asylum in other countries because of the unrest caused by separatist militants.
Pakistani authorities have acknowledged that disappearances happens. In 2011, government established a commission which registered 5,369 missing person's complaints. The commission claims to have traced more then 3,600 people.[16]
On June 3, 2012, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani directed Balochistan's chief minister to take special measures to trace the missing persons.[17]
In October 2018, Balochistan National Party (Mengal) (BNP-M) claimed that around 300 missing persons had returned their homes.[18] Similarly in January 2019, Voice of Baloch Missing People (VBMP) decided to end their suspend their protest after around dozens of missing people returned to their homes. VBMP gave a list of 110 missing people which the VBMP expects the government recover them within two months.[19]
The Frontier Corps (FC), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency[20] and other groups have been accused of "a decade-long campaign" of "pick up and dump" in which "Baloch nationalists, militants or even innocent bystanders are picked up, disappeared, tortured, mutilated and then killed".[21] Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been accused of massive human rights abuses in Balochistan by Human Rights Watch, with the enforced disappearance of hundreds of nationalists and activists. In 2008 alone, an estimated 1102 people were disappeared from the region.[20] There have also been reports of torture.[22] An increasing number of bodies are being found on roadsides, having been shot in the head.[23] In July 2011, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan issued a report on illegal disappearances in Balochistan which identified ISI and Frontier Corps as the perpetrators. According to journalist Malik Siraj Akbar, as of May 2015, "dozens of people are losing their lives every day" in "extra judicial killings committed by the Pakistani security forces" in the province of Balochistan.[24] However, Pakistan security officials have rejected all allegations against them.
In a 2012 statement to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Pakistani government denied allegations of the use of secret operations or death squads in Balochistan.[25] Major General Obaid Ullah Khan Niazi, commander of the 46,000 paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) stationed in Balochistan, claimed that "militants are using FC uniforms to kidnap people and malign our good name."[26] Similarly, Baloch separatist militants have also been found using military uniform which resembles the one used by Frontier Corps while carrying out their activities.[27]
Balochistan’s former chief minister, Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal, in a statement to the Supreme Court, claimed that the current civil disturbances in Balochistan were a direct result of "enforced disappearances".[28]
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)[29][30] and Al Jazeera,[31] there has been a surge in religious extremism in Balochistan, with banned terrorist organizations such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Pakistani Taliban targeting Hindus, Shias (including Hazaras) and Zikris, resulting in the migration of over 210,000 Shias, Zikris, and Hindus from Baluchistan to other parts of Pakistan.[32] A further 90,000 ethnic Punjabis have also fled due to campaigns against Punjabis by Balochi militants.[33]
Baloch Liberation Front has also targeted Zikris in the province.[34][35]
In 2005, 32 Hindus were killed by firing from the government side near Nawab Akbar Bugti's residence during bloody clashes between Bugti tribesmen and paramilitary forces. The firing left the Hindu residential locality near Bugti's residence badly hit.[36]
Main articles: Persecution of Hazara people in Quetta and Sectarian violence in Pakistan
Shia Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds make up at least 20% of the total population of Pakistan[citation needed]. The Hazara ethnic minority has been facing discrimination in Balochistan Province for a long time, and violence perpetrated against the community has risen sharply in recent years.[37][38][39] Since the year 2000, over 2000 Shia Hazara community members, including many women and children, have been killed or injured in Quetta.[40] Most of them have been the victims of terrorist attacks by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which is a Sunni Muslim militant organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.[41] Repression against the Shi'ite Muslims began in 1998 with the assassination of Gen Musa Khan's son Hassan Musa in Karachi,[42] and worsened in Pakistan after the September 11 attacks and the expulsion of the Taliban from Afghanistan.[43][44]
Shias have also been targeted by Baloch Separatists militants. Shia pilgrim passing through rigid terrain of Balochistan are common target for Baloch separatists militants. Shias are targeted mainly because they are not ethnically Baloch.[45] Moreover, it is reported that Balochistan Liberation Army had formed an alliance with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan is another terrorist group known for their attacks against Shia Muslims.[45]
In 2003, 53 people died and 150 were critically injured in a suicide attack on the main Shia Friday mosque in Quetta.[42] On March 2, 2004, at least 42 persons were killed and more than 100 wounded when a procession of Shia Muslims was attacked by Sunni extremists at Liaquat Bazaar in Quetta.[46] On October 7, 2004, a car bomb killed 40 members of an extremist Sunni organization in Multan. 300 people died during 2006.[47] On December 28, 2009, as many as 40 Shias were killed in an apparent suicide bombing in Karachi. The bomber attacked a Shia procession which was held to mark Ashura.[48]
Many youth from the Hazara community have had to flee to Europe and Australia, often illegally, in order to escape the oppression.[42]
Baloch insurgent movements have also been accused of grave human rights abuses in Balochistan, including targeted killings of ethnic non-Baloch civilians by Human Right Organisation. This has caused an economic brain drain in the province. According to the Chief Minister of Balochistan Nawab Aslam Raisani, "a large number of professors, teachers, engineers and barbers are leaving the province for fear of attacks. This inhuman act will push the Baloch nation at least one century back. The Baloch nation will never forgive whoever is involved in target killings." Raisani noted that these immigrant settlers had been living in Balochistan for centuries and called their targeting by Baloch insurgents "a crime against humanity".[49]
Journalists, teachers, students, and human rights defenders have been targeted in Balochistan according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.[50] According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Baloch Separatists militants are responsible for attacks on schools, teachers and students in the province.[51] As a result, many teachers have sought transfer to secure areas such Quetta or have moved out of province entirely.[52] Moreover, Separatist groups have also claimed responsibility for killing Journalists in the province.[53][54][55][56]
Human Right Organisation have held Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) responsible for ethnic cleansing in the province as Brahamdagh Bugti (alleged leader of BLA), during a TV interview on 15 April 2009, urged separatists to kill non-Baloch residing in Balochistan. His actions allegedly lead to the death of 500 non-Baloch citizens in the province.[57]
Apart from Human Right Organisations, Baloch separatists themselves have accused each other of being involved in Human right violations.[58] Separatist accuse each other of being involved in extortion, kidnapping and even raping local Baloch.[58]
The U.S. Department of State estimates that in 2012 at least 690 civilians were victims of violence in Balochistan. A report from the Interior Ministry in 2012 stated that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Balochistan, Baloch Musalla Difa Tanzeem, and the Baloch Liberation Army were involved in violent disturbances. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates that these groups and others killed 2,050 innocent persons and injured another 3,822 in 2012.[50]
The US government has expressed alarm at the reports of thousands Baloch separatists and Taliban insurgents disappearing into the hands of Pakistan's security forces and possibly being tortured or killed. A 2010 State Department report said that the Pakistan government made "limited progress" in advancing human rights.[59] Member of the European Parliament Marc Tarabella, in an article in The Parliament Magazine in 2015, wrote, "The main victims of this violence are the people of Balochistan who are being systematically targeted by paramilitary groups, allegedly sponsored by the Pakistani authorities. Extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances are the most common practices".[60]
During an all-party meeting in Delhi, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said that Pakistan "shall have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Baluchistan."[61] Modi's remarks came during the unrest in Indian Kashmir, a territory disputed between both countries, where Pakistan condemned the alleged state human rights violations.[62] Former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, also interviewed by the press while in India, appreciated Modi for his comments on Balochistan, and said that, "In Balochistan there is extreme suffering at the hands of extremists promoted by state structures in Pakistan. Therefore the people's concerns need to be addressed and aired."[63] Pakistan's foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz said Modi's statement was "self-incriminating", vindicating Pakistani accusations of Indian intelligence involvement in Balochistan's insurgency, and called it an attempt to divert attention from the Kashmir violence.[64] In the 33rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, India raised the issue of human rights violations in Baluchistan, saying that "the people of Balochistan, amongst other provinces, have been waging for decades a bitter and brave struggle against their daily abuse and torture."[65]
Pakistan's secret dirty war
In Balochistan, mutilated corpses bearing the signs of torture keep turning up, among them lawyers, students and farm workers. Why is no one investigating and what have they got to do with the bloody battle for Pakistan's largest province?
Tue 29 Mar 2011 23.00 BSTFirst published on Tue 29 Mar 2011 23.00 BST
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Lala Bibi with her father and son Saeed Ahmed – and photographs of her murdered son Najibullah and his cousin, who was also abducted. Photograph: Declan Walsh for the Guardian
The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with electric prods. In some cases the bodies are unrecognisable, sprinkled with lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head.
This gruesome parade of corpses has been surfacing in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, since last July. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accounted for more than 100 bodies – lawyers, students, taxi drivers, farm workers. Most have been tortured. The last three were discovered on Sunday.
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If you have not heard of this epic killing spree, though, don't worry: neither have most Pakistanis. Newspaper reports from Balochistan are buried quietly on the inside pages, cloaked in euphemisms or, quite often, not published at all.
The forces of law and order also seem to be curiously indifferent to the plight of the dead men. Not a single person has been arrested or prosecuted; in fact, police investigators openly admit they are not even looking for anyone. The stunning lack of interest in Pakistan's greatest murder mystery in decades becomes more understandable, however, when it emerges that the prime suspect is not some shady gang of sadistic serial killers, but the country's powerful military and its unaccountable intelligence men.
This is Pakistan's dirty little war. While foreign attention is focused on the Taliban, a deadly secondary conflict is bubbling in Balochistan, a sprawling, mineral-rich province along the western borders with Afghanistan and Iran. On one side is a scrappy coalition of guerrillas fighting for independence from Pakistan; on the other is a powerful army that seeks to quash their insurgency with maximum prejudice. The revolt, which has been rumbling for more than six years, is spiced by foreign interests and intrigues – US spy bases, Chinese business, vast underground reserves of copper, oil and gold.
And in recent months it has grown dramatically worse. At the airport in Quetta, the provincial capital, a brusque man in a cheap suit marches up to my taxi with a rattle of questions. "Who is this? What's he doing here? Where is he staying?" he asks the driver, jerking a thumb towards me. Scribbling the answers, he waves us on. "Intelligence," says the driver.
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The city itself is tense, ringed by jagged, snow-dusted hills and crowded with military checkposts manned by the Frontier Corps (FC), a paramilitary force in charge of security. Schools have recently raised their walls; sand-filled Hesco barricades, like the ones used in Kabul and Baghdad, surround the FC headquarters. In a restaurant the waiter apologises: tandoori meat is off the menu because the nationalists blew up the city's gas pipeline a day earlier. The gas company had plugged the hole that morning, he explains, but then the rebels blew it up again.
The home secretary, Akbar Hussain Durrani, a neatly suited, well-spoken man, sits in a dark and chilly office. Pens, staplers and telephones are neatly laid on the wide desk before him, but his computer is blank. The rebels have blown up a main pylon, he explains, so the power is off. Still, he insists, things are fine. "The government agencies are operating in concert, everyone is acting in the best public interest," he says. "This is just a . . . political problem." As we speak, a smiling young man walks in and starts to take my photo; I later learn he works for the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.
We cut across the city, twisting through the backstreets, my guide glancing nervously out the rear window. The car halts before a tall gate that snaps shut behind us. Inside, a 55-year-old woman named Lal Bibi is waiting, wrapped in a shawl that betrays only her eyes, trembling as she holds forth a picture of her dead son Najibullah. The 20-year-old, who ran a shop selling motorbike parts, went missing last April after being arrested at an FC checkpost, she says. His body turned up three months later, dumped in a public park on the edge of Quetta, badly tortured. "He had just two teeth in his mouth," she says in a voice crackling with pain. She turns to her father, a turbaned old man sitting beside her, and leans into his shoulder. He grimaces.
Suspected members of the Baloch Liberation Army are paraded by Pakistani police. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty ImagesAdvertisement
Bibi says her family was probably targeted for its nationalist ties – Najibullah's older brother, now dead, had joined the "men in the mountains" years earlier, she says. Now a nephew, 28-year-old Maqbool, is missing. She prays for him, regularly calling the hospitals for any sign of him and, occasionally, the city morgues.
Over a week of interviews in Karachi and Quetta, I meet the relatives of seven dead men and nine "disappeared" – men presumed to have been abducted by the security forces. One man produces a mobile phone picture of the body of his 22-year-old cousin, Mumtaz Ali Kurd, his eyes black with swelling and his shirt drenched in blood. A relative of Zaman Khan, one of three lawyers killed in the past nine months, produces court papers. A third trembles as he describes finding his brother's body in an orchard near Quetta.
Patterns emerge. The victims were generally men between 20 and 40 years old – nationalist politicians, students, shopkeepers, labourers. In many cases they were abducted in broad daylight – dragged off buses, marched out of shops, detained at FC checkposts – by a combination of uniformed soldiers and plain-clothes intelligence men. Others just vanished. They re-emerge, dead, with an eerie tempo – approximately 15 bodies every month, although the average was disturbed last Saturday when eight bodies were found in three locations across Balochistan.
Activists have little doubt who is behind the atrocities. Human Rights Watch says "indisputable" evidence points to the hand of the FC, the ISI and its sister agency, Military Intelligence. A local group, Voice for Missing Persons, says the body count has surpassed 110. "This is becoming a state of terror," says its chairman, Naseerullah Baloch.
The army denies the charges, saying its good name is being blemished by impersonators. "Militants are using FC uniforms to kidnap people and malign our good name," says Major General Obaid Ullah Khan Niazi, commander of the 46,000 FC troops stationed in Balochistan. "Our job is to enforce the law, not to break it."
Despairing relatives feel cornered. Abdul Rahim, a farmer wearing a jewelled skullcap, is from Khuzdar, a hotbed of insurgent violence. He produces court papers detailing the abduction of his son Saadullah in 2009. First he went to the courts but then his lawyer was shot dead. Then he went to the media but the local press club president was killed. Now, Rahim says, "nobody will help in case they are targeted too. We are hopeless."
Balochistan has long been an edgy place. Its vast, empty deserts and long borders are a magnet for provocateurs of every stripe. Taliban fighters slip back and forth along the 800-mile Afghan border; Iranian dissidents hide inside the 570-mile frontier with Iran. Drug criminals cross the border from Helmand, the world's largest source of heroin, on their way to Iran or lonely beaches on the Arabian Sea. Wealthy Arab sheikhs fly into remote airstrips on hunting expeditions for the houbara bustard, a bird they believe improves their lovemaking. At Shamsi, a secretive airbase in a remote valley in the centre of the province, CIA operatives launch drones that attack Islamists in the tribal belt.
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The US spies appreciate the lack of neighbours – Balochistan covers 44% of Pakistan yet has half the population of Karachi. The province's other big draw is its natural wealth. At Reko Diq, 70 miles from the Afghan border, a Canadian-Chilean mining consortium has struck gold, big-time. The Tethyancompany has discovered 4bn tonnes of mineable ore that will produce an estimated 200,000 tonnes of copper and 250,000 ounces of gold per year, making it one of the largest such mines in the world. The project is currently stalled by a tangled legal dispute, but offers a tantalising taste of Balochistan's vast mineral riches, which also includes oil, gas, platinum and coal. So far it is largely untapped, though, and what mining exists is scrappy and dangerous. On 21 March, 50 coal workers perished in horrific circumstances when methane gas flooded their mine near Quetta, then catastrophically exploded.
Two conflicts are rocking the province. North of Quetta, in a belt of land adjoining the Afghan border, is the ethnic Pashtun belt. Here, Afghan Taliban insurgents shelter in hardline madrasas and lawless refugee camps, taking rest in between bouts of battle with western soldiers in Afghanistan. It is home to the infamous "Quetta shura", the Taliban war council, and western officials say the ISI is assisting them. Some locals agree. "It's an open secret," an elder from Kuchlak tells me. "The ISI gave a fleet of motorbikes to local elders, who distributed them to the fighters crossing the border. Nobody can stop them."
The other conflict is unfolding south of Quetta, in a vast sweep that stretches from the Quetta suburbs to the Arabian Sea, in the ethnic Baloch and Brahui area, whose people have always been reluctant Pakistanis. The first Baloch revolt erupted in 1948, barely six months after Pakistan was born; this is the fifth. The rebels are splintered into several factions, the largest of which is the Balochistan Liberation Army. They use classic guerrilla tactics – ambushing military convoys, bombing gas pipelines, occasionally lobbing rockets into Quetta city. Casualties are relatively low: 152 FC soldiers died between 2007 and 2010, according to official figures, compared with more than 8,000 soldiers and rebels in the 1970s conflagration.
But this insurgency seems to have spread deeper into Baloch society than ever before. Anti-Pakistani fervour has gripped the province. Baloch schoolchildren refuse to sing the national anthem or fly its flag; women, traditionally secluded, have joined the struggle. Universities have become hotbeds of nationalist sentiment. "This is not just the usual suspects," says Rashed Rahman, editor of the Daily Times, one of few papers that regularly covers the conflict.
At a Quetta safehouse I meet Asad Baloch, a wiry, talkative 22-year-old activist with the Baloch Students' Organisation (Azad). "We provide moral and political support to the fighters," he says. "We are making people aware. When they are aware, they act." It is a risky business: about one-third of all "kill and dump" victims were members of the BSO.
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Baloch anger is rooted in poverty. Despite its vast natural wealth, Balochistan is desperately poor – barely 25% of the population is literate (the national average is 47%), around 30% are unemployed and just 7% have access to tap water. And while Balochistan provides one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, only a handful of towns are hooked up to the supply grid.
The insurgents are demanding immediate control of the natural resources and, ultimately, independence. "We are not part of Pakistan," says Baloch.
Well-armed Baloch insurgents in the contested region south of the capital Quetta. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP
His phone rings. News comes through that another two bodies have been discovered near the coast. One, Abdul Qayuum, was a BSO activist. Days later, videos posted on YouTube show an angry crowd carrying his bloodied corpse into a mortuary. He had been shot in the head.
The FC commander, Maj Gen Niazi, wearing a sharp, dark suit and with neatly combed hair (he has just come from a conference) says he has little time for the rebel demand. "The Baloch are being manipulated by their leaders," he says, noting that the scions of the main nationalist groups live in exile abroad – Hyrbyair Marri in London; Brahamdagh Bugti in Geneva. "They are enjoying the life in Europe while their people suffer in the mountains," he says with a sigh.
Worse again, he adds, they were supported by India. The Punjabi general offers no proof for his claim, but US and British intelligence broadly agree, according to the recent WikiLeaks cables. India sees Balochistan as payback for Pakistani meddling in Kashmir – which explains why Pakistani generals despise the nationalists so much. "Paid killers," says Niazi. He vehemently denies involvement in human rights violations. "To us, each and every citizen of Balochistan is equally dear," he says.
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Civilian officials in the province, however, have another story. Last November, the provincial chief minister, Aslam Raisani, told the BBC that the security forces were "definitely" guilty of some killings; earlier this month, the province's top lawyer, Salahuddin Mengal, told the supreme court the FC was "lifting people at will". He resigned a week later.
However, gross human rights abuses are not limited to the army. As the conflict drags on, the insurgents have become increasingly brutal and ruthless. In the past two years, militants have kidnapped aid workers, killed at least four journalists and, most disturbingly, started to target "settlers" – unarmed civilians, mostly from neighbouring Punjab, many of whom have lived in Balochistan for decades. Some 113 settlers were killed in cold blood last year, according to government figures – civil servants, shopkeepers, miners. On 21 March, militants riding motorbikes sprayed gunfire into a camp of construction workers near Gwadar, killing 11; the Baloch Liberation Front claimed responsibility. Most grotesque, perhaps, are the attacks on education: 22 school teachers, university lecturers and education officials have been assassinated since January 2008, causing another 200 to flee their jobs.
As attitudes harden, the middle ground is being swept away in tide of bloodshed. "Our politicians have been silenced," says Habib Tahir, a human rights lawyer in Quetta. "They are afraid of the young." I ask a student in Quetta to defend the killing of teachers. "They are not teachers, they work for the intelligence agencies," one student tells me. "They are like thieves coming into our homes. They must go."
The Islamabad government seems helpless to halt Balochistan's slide into chaos. Two years ago, President Asif Ali Zardari announced a sweeping package of measures intended to assuage Baloch grievances, including thousands of jobs, a ban on new military garrisons and payment of $1.4bn (£800m) in overdue natural gas royalties. But violence has hijacked politics, the plan is largely untouched, and anaemic press coverage means there is little outside pressure for action.
Pakistan's foreign allies, obsessed with hunting Islamists, have ignored the problem. "We are the most secular people in the region, and still we are being ignored," says Noordin Mengal, who represents Balochistan on the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
In this information vacuum, the powerful do as they please. Lawyer Kachkol Ali witnessed security forces drag three men from his office in April 2009. Their bodies turned up five days later, dead and decomposed. After telling his story to the press, Ali was harassed by military intelligence, who warned him his life was in danger. He fled the country. "In Pakistan, there is only rule of the jungle," he says by phone from Lørenskog, a small Norwegian town where he won asylum last summer. "Our security agencies pick people up and treat them like war criminals," he says. "They don't even respect the dead."
Balochistan's dirty little war pales beside Pakistan's larger problems – the Taliban, al-Qaida, political upheaval. But it highlights a very fundamental danger – the ability of Pakistanis to live together in a country that, under its Islamic cloak, is a patchwork of ethnicities and cultures. "Balochistan is a warning of the real battle for Pakistan, which is about power and resources," says Haris Gazdar, a Karachi-based researcher. "And if we don't get it right, we're headed for a major conflict."
Before leaving Quetta I meet Faiza Mir, a 36-year-old lecturer in international relations at Quetta's Balochistan University. Militants have murdered four of her colleagues in the past three years, all because they were "Punjabi". Driving on to the campus, she points out the spots where they were killed, knowing she could be next.
"I can't leave," says Mir, a sparky woman with an irrepressible smile. "This is my home too." And so she engages in debate with students, sympathising with their concerns. "I try to make them understand that talk is better than war," she says.
But some compromises are impossible. Earlier on, students had asked Mir to remove a portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founding father, from her office wall. Mir politely refused, and Jinnah – an austere lawyer in a Savile Row suit - still stares down from her wall.
But how long will he stay there? "That's difficult to say," she answers.
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