The Missing Graves

Report

Balochistan has been witnessing grave human-rights violations and war crimes for decades in the form of forcibly disappearances, who remained detainee and tortured for a prolonged period. Some of whom disappeared have later been killed, with their bodies being buried, without their families being informed or disclosing the location of the grave. This forms another type of disappearance, the disappearance of the dead body. The family not only loses a loved one but is denied the basic right of knowing where that person was buried, how they died, and where they mourn for them.

The recent case of Changaiz Baloch, a young Baloch from Turbat, has brought this issue to the forefront once again. Changaiz, a resident of Alandor, Zamuran was forcibly disappeared from the Absar area of Turbat on September 04, 2026. His family waited for information about his whereabouts, but he was not released. After approximately two weeks, they were contacted by intelligence personnel and told that Changaiz had died while in custody and that his body had already been buried. A photograph sent to the family showed Changaiz’s body with a serious injury to his head and blood around him. He was killed in custody and subsequently buried at an undisclosed location while his family was waiting for his return. But now the main question for his family is where is Changaiz’s grave and what happened to him before he was buried?

The case of Imran Ali, a Baloch student from Quetta presents another example of a death followed by an undisclosed burial. Imran was forcibly disappeared from his residence in Quetta on 27th of August, 2025. His family did not receive any information about his whereabouts for almost a year. On 6th of August, 2026, state authorities disclosed that Imran had been killed on 23 May 2026 and his family was told that he died during an armed encounter. The family has deemed this account as contradictor and false, saying that people who were later released from detention had seen Imran in the custody. The family has demanded information about the location of his grave but have not received any response. Custodial killings have previously been a normal practice by state authorities in Balochistan like the recent case of a 17-year-old FSc student, Irshad Baloch from Lasi Goth, Malir, Karachi, who was taken from his home by police and intelligence personnels on 29th of August, 2026. The following day his family received his body at Jinnah Hospital and was told that he had died from an electric shock. Though Irshad’s family received his body but recent cases like that of Imran and Changaiz represents another trend of custodial killings with no information of their bodies too.

Irshad’s case varies from those in which the grave remains undisclosed but raises the same concerns of brutal genocidal practices of custodial killings in Balochistan by the state of Pakistan.

These cases are not the first reports of undisclosed burials in Balochistan. In 2025 the case of Azmat Rind from Dera Murad Jamali, Naseerabad, represents the same pattern. He was forcibly disappeared on 5th of June, 2025 and his family was informed more than a month later of his death and that his body had been buried at an undisclosed location in Chhatar, Naseerabad, without the family’s consent and participation in the funeral. Later his family was also not given access to the location of his grave.

Similarly, the families of Saifullah and Shahjahan in Turbat experienced the same grievances. Saifullah disappeared on April 20, 2025, while Shahjahan was detained on 14th of April, 2025. Their families were later informed that they had been killed in encounters and buried.

The problem also extends to bodies whose identities are never established. In January 2019, ten decomposed bodies were brought by the Edhi Foundation to Teramil Graveyard in Dash area of Quetta, and buried without identification. These unidentified bodies potentially include people who had previously been disappeared. When the bodies remain unidentified and are buried without proper identification, the families of the missing persons never know whether the person, they have spent years searching for, is already among the dead.

The history of this issue goes further back and traces the tragic incident of Tootak mass graves in Khuzdar. In January 2014, mass graves were discovered in Tootak where 13 decomposed bodies were initially discovered. One of the bodies among them was identified as Naseer Ahmed who had been disappeared together with his brother, Mohammad Umar on 4th of October, 2013. Naseer’s brother, Muhammed Zabad identified his remains among those recovered. This confirms that bodies found in undisclosed locations are of those innocent people who have been victims of enforced disappearances by the state security forces. While, most of the other bodies remained unidentified but this recovery of bodies clinched the hearts of thousands of families in Balochistan who are waiting for their beloved to return home. Later the number of the bodies recovered from the area reached to 17, and till date there is no clear verification of how many bodies were recovered. The Tootak graves became one of the most significant examples of the tragedy faced by families searching for disappeared victims; even when the bodies are eventually discovered, but the decompositions make it impossible for the families to know whether their loved ones are among the dead.

Taken together, these cases point to a deeply disturbing pattern of colonial rule in Balochistan where a person disappears, the family searches for him, information is withheld, months pass, and the family is eventually informed of his death – sometimes after the body has already been buried. Some families are even not given the location of the grave, while others deal with unidentified bodies being buried without identification.

A grave is not simply a piece of land for the dead, it is the place where mourning becomes possible for the family, where religious and cultural obligations can be fulfilled, and where the reality of death can finally be confronted. When the location of a grave is withheld, a family that has already suffered the trauma of disappearance is left with another uncertainty of missing dead body of their beloved.

The cases of Changaiz Baloch, Imran Ali, Irshad Baloch, Azmat Rind, Saifullah, Shahjahan and Salam Eid, along with the unidentified bodies reported from Dasht and the Tootak mass graves, demonstrate the barbaric policies of Pakistan which are entirely inhumane and are against international law and human rights.