Rights body slams Balochistan CM’s threat to destroy orchards, arrest owners in Mastung

Quetta, Aug 29 (IANS) A leading human rights organisation on Saturday condemned Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti’s threats to “burn and demolish” local people’s orchards and arrest their owners in Mastung district of the province, describing the remarks as “deeply alarming and condemnable.”

The criticism came after Bugti, speaking at an event at the Central Police Office in Quetta on Friday, warned that orchard owners would be treated as facilitators if the provincial interior minister or security forces are attacked from within the orchards in Mastung.

Bugti said that if the use of private properties for militant activities continued, the government would have two options: either relocate residents on a large scale and resettle them elsewhere, or “eliminate” the orchards allegedly being used for such acts, Pakistani media outlet Daily Dunya reported.

Slamming the remarks, the Baloch Voice for Justice (BVJ ) said that such threats to target the property and economic resources of civilians in Balochistan raise serious concerns over violations of fundamental human rights, the property right, and the basic right to livelihood.

“The human rights situation in Balochistan is already a matter of grave concern. Threats to burn local people’s orchards not only place their livelihoods and sources of income at risk but could also constitute a serious form of collective pressure and collective punishment against the local population. Against the backdrop of alleged ongoing human rights violations in Balochistan, threats to target civilians’ economic resources and private property are particularly disturbing,” the BVJ stated.

“Threatening to burn or demolish people’s orchards and arrest orchard owners would amount to collective punishment and a serious violation of civilians’ fundamental economic and human rights,’ it added.

The BVJ called on the Pakistani authorities to refrain from any actions aimed at intimidating civilians, damaging their property, or subjecting them to collective punishment, while ensuring respect for the fundamental human, economic, and property rights of the local population in Mastung.

As violence against Baloch civilians continues unabated across Pakistan, Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) criticised the occupation of agricultural lands in Karachi’s Malir district by Pakistani authorities “under the pretext of Education City”, while calling the forced evictions of the Baloch community “unacceptable”.

“The Baloch have inhabited Malir for centuries, and the lands, agricultural life, and local society of this region are part of their historical identity. The attempt to seize these lands from the local population under a project is in fact a policy to weaken their historical and collective existence,” the BYC stated.

“The Education City project endangers approximately 20,000 acres of land in six villages of Malir, while more than 80 settlements, ancient cemeteries, historical sites, and agricultural lands are also at risk. The process of immediately acquiring nearly 1,000 acres of land for the project has become a serious threat to the land-related rights of the local population,” it added.

–IANS

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