When a society reaches the point where even the judiciary isn't safe from broad daylight assassinations, the illusion of normal governance evaporates entirely. Prominent human rights advocate Sammi Deen Baloch didn't mince words recently when she called out the Pakistani authorities over the mounting lawlessness in Balochistan.
The breaking point came after the targeted killing of Sessions Judge Abdul Hakeem Kakar. When judicial figures who are supposed to uphold the law get gunned down publicly, it signals a terrifying collapse of order. Yet, government officials seem far more interested in broadcasting claims of restored stability than confronting the bloody reality on the ground. You might also find this related coverage interesting: Inside the White House Meeting That Could Break the US-Israel Alliance.
The Anatomy of a Security Collapse
If you listen to state television broadcasts, you'd think Balochistan is a model of peace and restored state authority. Walk through the streets of Quetta or talk to families living in the districts, and you hear a radically different story.
Ordinary citizens aren't just dealing with sporadic crime waves. They are burying their dead almost daily. The violence has metastasized, crossing the line from remote insurgent clashes into urban centers and targeting public servants, travelers, and legal professionals. As highlighted in recent reports by The New York Times, the results are worth noting.
Consider the sequence of recent horrors that local rights groups and committees have documented:
- The broad daylight murder of Sessions Judge Abdul Hakeem Kakar.
- Deadly assaults on passenger buses leaving ordinary travelers, including women and children, dead.
- Continuous curfew-like clampdowns and severe movement restrictions imposed across areas like Mastung’s Khad Kocha.
These aren't isolated incidents. They form a continuous chain of systemic breakdown. When checkpoints dictate whether you can attend a wedding or hold a funeral, standard civil liberties cease to exist.
Optics Versus Reality on the Ground
Governments love a good PR campaign. When policies fail to secure a region, officials often double down on messaging rather than strategy.
Sammi Deen Baloch pointed out this exact hypocrisy. While authorities busy themselves with televised declarations that normalcy has returned, peaceful activists face intense crackdowns. Dissent is treated as a greater threat than actual lawlessness.
Instead of conducting transparent investigations into extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and rising violence, the state machinery shifts the blame. Activists who document abuses get labeled as agitators. Journalists and human rights defenders find themselves fighting state-backed intimidation rather than doing their jobs.
This approach creates a dangerous vacuum. When the justice system cannot protect its own judges, public faith vanishes. People stop looking to the courts for recourse because the courts themselves are bleeding.
Why Current Counter-Insurgency Tactics Backfire
For decades, Islamabad has relied on heavy-handed security operations to quell unrest in resource-rich Balochistan. The playbook rarely changes: mass arrests, restricted mobility, and a persistent denial of systemic issues.
That playbook has failed.
When young people vanish into state detention facilities without due process, it breeds deep-seated resentment. When families spend years searching for missing relatives only to find bullet-riddled bodies dumped across districts like Panjgur or Surab, anger takes root.
Treating an entire province as a hostile zone doesn't eliminate insurgency. It feeds it. Ignoring the root causes of socio-economic neglect and political alienation ensures that every generation inherits a deeper cycle of conflict.
The Path Forward Requires Radical Accountability
Fixing a crisis of this magnitude requires brutal honesty from the top down. Continuing to pretend that administrative spin can substitute for genuine security is a losing game.
Real stability won't arrive via televised press conferences claiming total control. It demands transparent accountability for extrajudicial violence, an immediate halt to enforced disappearances, and an honest dialogue with the communities bearing the brunt of the chaos. Until leadership acknowledges its own policy failures, the downward spiral in Balochistan will only accelerate.
