Quetta, Aug 14 (IANS) Mahrang Baloch, human rights activist and chief organiser of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), strongly condemned the Pakistani airstrikes in the Gidar area of Balochistan’s Surab district, describing the attack as a continuation of Baloch “genocide”.
The incident took place in the early hours of Tuesday when the Pakistani Air Force reportedly carried out indiscriminate bombardment in residential areas in the Gidar area of Surab, killing over 30 civilians, including women and children and injuring several others, while causing significant damage to properties.
In a statement issued from Huda Jail in Quetta and posted on her social media platform X, Mahrang said, “If a state considers the mass killing of dozens of civilians, including children, resulting from bombing homes and populated areas as a routine operation, then this is not a military operation but genocide. The people of Surab blocking roads and protesting against this brutal and oppressive attack is an expression that the people will not remain silent against the protection of their lives and property and this mass killing.”
On June 22, a Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced four activists, including Mahrang, to life imprisonment in connection with a case relating to the killing of a Frontier Corps official, sparking global outrage. Human rights defenders and groups alleged that charges against the Baloch activists are “false and politically motivated ."
Meanwhile, Mahrang said that Pakistan has ruled over the Baloch people for the past seven decades, seeking to maintain its dominance over Balochistan through a system of “continuous oppression”. However, she said this violent model of governance has now failed, with ordinary Baloch people once again being made to bear the cost of that failure.
“The Baloch genocide is not merely an internal issue of Balochistan but a global humanitarian tragedy. Until this genocide and its root causes are eliminated, any talk of peace is mere rhetoric and an escape from reality. Over the past few months, under the guise of security, curfews, military operations, enforced disappearances, and mass killings have become routine in various areas of Balochistan,” she said, highlighting atrocities by Pakistani forces across the province.
“A large number of these incidents find no place in the narrative of state media, but the Baloch people are witnessing these conditions with their own eyes every day and enduring them in their lives. We reject every state policy that endangers the lives of Baloch children, women, and ordinary citizens and dismisses their deaths as mere collateral damage,” the Baloch activist added.
Mahrang called on the people of Balochistan to come out of their homes to protest against the Surab attack and resist the ongoing repression by Pakistani forces.
--IANS
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