KARACHI: The government of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Wednesday wrote a letter to a high court registrar seeking that a judge be appointed to head an inquiry into the killing of six people that the Pakistan army said were “terrorists” gunned down earlier this month as part of an operation following the kidnapping and murder of a serving military officer.

The body of Lt. Col. Laeeq Mirza Baig was found on July 14 in the Mangi Dam area situated between the Ziarat and Harnai districts of Balochistan, with the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of the officer.

ISPR, the military’s media wing, had said Baig was abducted by a group of 10-12 militants who shot him on the night of July 13/14 after being encircled by troops carrying out a search operation.

The ISPR subsequently said it had killed six BLA “terrorists” in a military operation. However, leading political parties and rights activists in the province said at least five of those killed were “missing persons.” Protests were held in Quetta and other cities of Balochistan against what politicians and members of the public said was a “fake encounter.” Some human rights activists and families of victims have for years alleged that such incidents are often staged to cover up extrajudicial killings. Security forces deny this.

“The Government of Balochistan intends to conduct a ‘Judicial Inquiry’ by a Hon’ble Judge of High Court of Balochistan into the killing of persons in Ziarat operation,” the government of Balochistan said in a letter dated July 27 to the registrar of the Balochistan High Court. “To ascertain the status of persons killed in [the] Ziarat operation, whether they were under [the] custody [of security forces] or otherwise.”

Zia Langvo, adviser to the province’s chief minister on home affairs, admitted last week five of those killed were on a missing persons list, but said many individuals identified as missing were actually militants hiding in the mountains and carrying out attacks against the security forces.

Langvo did not respond to repeated requests by Arab News for comment.

However, Amna Baloch, the organizer of the Baloch Missing Persons Solidarity Committee, told Arab News the families of the people killed in the encounter had “little hope” a new probe would yield results as past inquiries had not been fruitful.

“Shams Satakzai, one those killed [in the Ziarat operation] was abducted five years ago,” Baloch said. “Engineer Zaheer disappeared from Quetta in October last year and his family had filed a petition in the court. Shahzad Ahmed Baloch had gone missing on June 4, 2022. Dr. Bakhtiar Baloch was picked up from Quetta on June 4, 2022, and Salim Karim Baksh disappeared on July 18, 2022,” she added, naming five people killed in the latest operation.

Baloch said those who had committed a crime should not be “disappeared” but brought before the courts and tried under the laws of the country.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the leader of a major provincial party, told media last week he had requested Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to order an inquiry into the Ziarat operation.

“We have evidence of who was picked up where and when,” he said.

The BLA and other separatist group have been waging an insurgency for years in Balochistan, a resource-rich region which has attracted substantial Chinese investment.

In April a suicide attack killed three Chinese teachers in Karachi, the capital of neighboring Sindh province, drawing strong condemnation from Beijing. The BLA claimed responsibility.

In February, insurgents armed with bombs and guns attacked two Pakistani military bases in Balochistan, killing seven soldiers and losing 13 of their own men.

Pakistan, where militants have waged war against the state for decades in various parts of the country, has long been plagued by enforced disappearances. Families say people are picked up by security forces, disappear often for years, and are sometimes found dead, with no official explanation. The Pakistan military has long denied it is involved in enforced disappearances.

In a rare statement on the matter issued in 2019, the army said it sympathized with families of missing Balochs, while saying that some may have joined militant groups and “not every person missing is attributable to the state.”