The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has slammed the execution-style killing of 13 labourers in Balochistan, reportedly hailing from Punjab, who were returning home to celebrate Eid.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the HRCP said it was appalled by the cold-blooded killing of 13 labourers by insurgents in Mach area of Balochistan. An insurgent group that was reported to have claimed responsibility for the attack had sought to justify the heinous act by claiming that the men worked for the security forces, however, the local police reports contradicted the claim, the statement said. And quite apart from all that, it had been established that the 13 men who had been forced out of passenger buses and abducted by the insurgents were all unarmed, it added. Their subsequent execution-style killing was as horrific as it was condemnable and demonstrated further brutalisation and desperation in the insurgents’ ranks, the statement added.
While the HRCP had repeatedly reiterated its calls for respect for human rights in Balochistan, those calls were certainly not addressed only to the security forces in the conflict-hit parts of the province. The HRCP believed that those claiming to struggle for realisation of their rights must also show respect for the fundamental rights of others and at all cost desist from committing grave human rights violations. Those indulging in premeditated killings must understand that such acts eroded whatever sympathy the people had for their cause inside the or outside the country, it further said. The HRCP hoped and expected that all right respecting people in Balochistan elsewhere in Pakistan and beyond would slam the brutal murders.
The HRCP called upon the government to take all reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure protection of the rights to life of all people in Balochistan irrespective of their ethnicity. It also called for the perpetrators of the labourers’ killing in Mach to be brought to justice. It urged the authorities once again to redouble efforts to restore peace and the writ of the state in Balochsitan through political means and rely on the use of force as a last resort.
