I served in Balochistan. It’s time to admit what isn’t working

When I joined the Police Service of Pakistan in 1988, my first posting as ASP was in Ziarat, Balochistan. Newly married, I jokingly called it my honeymoon posting. It was a peaceful district with just two police stations serving a close-knit community.

Ziarat also introduced me to its ancient juniper forests. I was told these trees grow only by inches over many years, and some have stood for centuries. Their strength came from deep roots and continuity. Like the ancient junipers, I learned an important lesson during the 1990 general elections: where communities know one another and relationships run deep, hidden actors find it much harder to manipulate events. Sadly, while the junipers grew patiently, mistrust took root among people until it hardened into today’s insurgency.

Over the next decade, I watched the province change. What had once been a routine law-and-order challenge gradually became a prolonged conflict with national and regional dimensions. I recall the kidnapping of the then deputy commissioner of Ziarat by Mullah Salam, known as Rocketi. Years later came the appalling destruction of the Quaid-e-Azam Residency. After every major incident, the official message remained the same: militants had been eliminated. Yet violence kept returning, often in new forms and with more intensity.

Peace will not come when the last militant is killed. It will come when every citizen believes the state belongs to them.

- Dr. Syed Kaleem Imam

The operation against Nawab Akbar Bugti became another turning point. Whether one agreed with him or not, he was an aging tribal leader whose political influence was already fading. His death, however, united many who had previously been divided. What followed was an approach that relied more on force than on rebuilding political trust and genuine local institutions.

Nearly two decades later, Pakistan must ask itself an uncomfortable question: if a security-centric strategy has not delivered lasting peace, why do we continue to rely on it instead of pursuing a politically inclusive strategy built on the rule of law, legitimate local leadership and public conviction?

Every state has the right and responsibility to confront armed groups that challenge its writ. But force must remain the last resort, exercised within the rule of law and directed only at those responsible. Collective punishment rarely defeats insurgencies; it often extends them.

The recent surge of attacks in Ziarat, Hanna Urak and the wider Pashtun belt is deeply worrying, and continued incidents in Mastung, Chagai and elsewhere remind us that the challenge persists. More troubling were reports that, in some places, local communities negotiated the release of some of the abducted while formal institutions struggled to respond. Perhaps it is time to admit that relying primarily on force is not a sustainable policy.

The real weakness, however, lies deeper. In my years of service, I saw again and again that the officials answerable for outcomes in Balochistan were seldom the ones who had made the decisions, and those who made the decisions were rarely held accountable for the consequences. The greatest casualty is the ordinary citizen, whose voice is largely absent from the process. Lasting peace cannot be built through disconnected leadership that lacks the confidence of the very people it claims to represent.

Our institutions compound this in two ways, and they are related. Over the years, I saw capable civil servants and police officers hesitate to offer honest professional advice, because agreement was rewarded while candor was treated as disloyalty. I recall a senior police officer proudly saying his primary duty was to represent the State. I respectfully disagree. The police represent the state best when they protect people’s rights, dignity and security. At the same time, capable administrators rarely remain in one place long enough to build anything. Good intelligence depends on credibility, local knowledge and continuity, and every abrupt transfer destroys relationships that took years to grow.

There is another lesson we continue to overlook. After every major attack, we investigate the perpetrators. Rarely do we examine ourselves. Where did the system fail? What warning signs were missed? What institutional weaknesses allowed the attack to occur? Professional organizations improve through honest after-action reviews.

Hostile actors undoubtedly exploit Balochistan’s fault lines. That should surprise no one. The more important question is why those fault lines remain unhealed after decades of operations, enormous public expenditure and repeated promises of peace.

The answer is not abandoning security operations where they are necessary. Nor is it creating another district, announcing another package or passing another law. Governance is not measured by administrative maps. It is measured by whether citizens trust their institutions enough to turn to them in moments of crisis.

If I were asked where to begin, I would begin not with another operation but with the people. Pakistan needs a sustained dialogue with communities that have become estranged from the state. Listening is not surrender. Reconciliation is not weakness. Every successful counter-insurgency ultimately depends on political legitimacy, accountable institutions and public trust.

The ancient junipers of Ziarat remind us that strong roots take time to grow. Sadly, while the insurgency matured over decades, our institutions were repeatedly uprooted before they could.

Balochistan does not need another announcement, another reshuffle or another declaration that the situation is under control. It needs stable leadership, credible local institutions and the courage to admit that if decades of the same approach have not produced lasting peace, then perhaps the strategy, not merely its execution, needs to change.

Peace will not come when the last militant is killed. It will come when every citizen believes the state belongs to them.

- Dr. Syed Kaleem Imam holds a PhD and is a former federal secretary, inspector general of police and UN police commissioner. He teaches law and philosophy at universities. He tweets @Kaleemimam. Email: [email protected]