The Pakistani’s Policy of Kill and Dump: A Chronicle of State Violence

Meerak Baloch

 

Since its colonial annexation by the state of Pakistan, Balochistan has been suffocated by the brutal suppression of the colonial state.

From the day of occupation, the Baloch nation has been politically marginalised and has been living under the subjugation of colonial shadow.

When dissidence and political rebellions arose in Balochistan, the suppressive state’s brutal tyranny evolved from military campaigns to lawless covert methods. From the early 2000s to the present time, decades of systematic human rights violations, ranging from political suppression and military operations to a systematic campaign of state violence: The kill and dump policy.

The policy of kill and dump is considered to be the darkest chapter in the colonial dimensions, where the state practices kidnapping, torturing, and dumping the badly mutilated bodies of Baloch people.

Historical background of the kill and dump policy:

During the early 2000s, under the Government of Parvez Musharraf, political activism was met with hard state crackdowns involving various acts of violence. Initially, the colonial state’s aggression focused primarily on enforced disappearances, where activists and other individuals were abducted, severely tortured and kept in dark dungeons.

After the assassination of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti by the military state in August 2006, political protests and activism was attacked with an extreme state crackdown; instead of keeping individuals in torture cells, the military shifted its tactics and started the heinous practice of Kill and Dump policy by killing and dumping of mutilated bodies across Balochistan.

The initial victims of this wicked policy were prominent Baloch leaders, including Gulam Mohammad Baloch, Lala Munir and Sher Mohammad. In April 2009, these political figures were forcibly abducted from Advocate Kachkol Baloch’s legal chamber at Kech, and shortly after their murder by the state, their severely tortured bodies were recovered in the Murghap area of Turbat. Their assassination started the practice with hard intensity.

Following this event, the policy expanded to target students like Qambar Chakar and Ilyas Nizar, and many others who were abducted, tortured, and executed. The state continued to kill and dump the tortured bodies across Balochistan. By 2011, international human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International recognized this method of state violence as a distinct policy of extrajudicial execution.

The scale of violence; an statistical data

The victims of the kill and dump practice had numbered in thousands, for which the exact toll remains a challenge. State censorship, restricted access to foreign journalism, and the massive fear surrounding the families about reporting formally on these deaths.

But despite such circumstances, human rights organizations and Baloch political organizations have compiled the data of victims of kill and dump from the beginning to the present day.

The kill and dump policy had its first massive period between 2010 to 2013 when the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons documented more than 400 plus mutilated bodies were founded, who were previously victims of enforced disappearances and these numbers were confirmed by leaked documents from the Balochistan Home and Tribal Affairs Department revealed that 590+ bullet ridden bodies were recorded over three years.

The tragic event of Tootak massacre had its biggest gruesome climax in January 2014, when a local shepard discovered hidden mass graves in the Tootak area of Khuzdar, burying more than 169 dead bodies which were severely decomposed for identification, leaving families of the victims uncertain about whether their loved ones were among the dead.

Moreover, in December 2016, the BBC published an investigation into the extrajudicial killings, The report verified that Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies had recovered over one thousand bullet-ridden dead bodies over the six year period. While the violent state claimed they were killed during the insurgent fighting but human rights organizations and families matched numerous bodies to victims who had previously been forcibly disappeared.

In the contemporary era, the extrajudicial killings has increased, the statistical numbers of mutilated bodies being recovered on daily basis, at least 111 and more individuals have become the target of killing and dumping policy from January to May of 2026.

This intensity of the illegal state crime operates with total impunity, causing Baloch nation a catastrophic, genocidal damage.

Mechanism of the violent policy:

In its early period, which was intensified during the 2010s to the contemporary period, kill and dump policy targeted primarily students, teachers, doctors, social workers, activists and people from various professions. These individuals were brutally killed not for active combat, as the state claims, but in crime of being educated, secular ideas, and political stance. The state-sponsored agents in plain clothes and military forces conducted midnight raids and daylight abductions, abducting Baloch youth from the university campuses, on-road checkpoints, and from their homes.

Meanwhile, the families of the victims are regularly refused by the local police to file FIRs, leaving the victims of state violence outside the protection of the law. Families are left in uncertainty with no legal guidance to locate their loved ones.

After weeks, months or even years of severe torture, the victims are extrajudicially and executed. Their tortured bodies are dumped along remote roadsides or in open fields.

The victim’s recovered bodies are served as a warning, as many have signs of physical trauma, including burns, drill marks and snapped limbs.

The actors and tactics of the violent kill and dump policy:

The extrajudicial killings relied on a mix of formal state institutions and regional proxy actors operating with a high degree of impunity.

Formal state actors:

The Frontier Corps: The FC is a heavily stationed force throughout Balochistan, with high involvement in kill and dump policy.

Intelligence Agencies: The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI), mainly indulged in the practices of enforced disappearances, high-level surveillance and covert abductions, which mostly lead to the extrajudicial killing of the victims.

Counter Terrorism Department: CTD, a state department, is highly involved in the practice of extrajudicial killings of Baloch individuals, during enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Local proxies and death squads:

To instill psychological fear and mask state atrocities, local militias and proxies are functional through state networks. These include groups named Death squads, Aman Force and other state-sponsored forces to disrupt political activism and execute individuals in heinous methods.

Contemporary methods and practices:

Through the decades, the kill and dump policy evolved through various tactics. The method underwent a structural shift. Today, the kill and dump policy operates primarily through what are recognized as staged executions and fake encounters.

The primary tactics include the forced disappearance of the victim. Then, the individual is held secretly for weeks, months and years, later transferred to Counter-Terrorism Custody for further interrogation. And lastly, during the interrogation, the victim of forced disappearance is extrajudicially executed in a staged firefight or ambush, as the state claims, the highlighting case is of Baloch Mola Baksh, who was executed by CTD in November 2023 after his disappearance by the state institutions. This method of state violence continues at the current time with no legal restrictions or accountability. There are hundreds of cases, depriving of being reported due to fear and harassment from the state.

Conclusion:

The kill and dump policy is not merely a series of isolated human right violations, but a colonial political tactics practiced by the aggressive state to abuse the Baloch nation on a collective basis. By targeting intellectuals, political leadership and other individuals, the military deems to forcefully suppress the legitimate political struggle of national liberation through absolute terror.

The current shift from body dumps to extrajudicial fake encounters, shows the state of Pakistan attempting to bypass itself from international accountability while maintaining its colonial power in Balochistan.