South Asia Terrorism Portal

PAKISTAN

Balochistan: Cruelty, Exploitation, Deprivation
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management
 

On January 3, 2021, Islamic State (IS) militants killed 11 coal miners and injured four in the Mach area of Kachi District of Balochistan. The victims belonged to the Shia Hazara minority community.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), during the first 10 days of 2021, Pakistan has recorded 16 fatalities [11 civilians, two Security Force (SF) personnel and three militants] in four incidents of killing, of which 11 were killed in the Mach incident, alone.

Through 2020, Pakistan recorded 506 fatalities (69 civilians, 178 SF personnel, and 159 terrorists), of which Balochistan alone accounted for 215 fatalities (84 civilians, 94 SF personnel, and 37 terrorists). The Province was a close second only to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which recorded 216 fatalities (61 civilians, 57 SF personnel, and 98 terrorists). There were 52 fatalities in Sindh, 16 in Punjab, five in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, and two in the Islamabad Capital Territory.

However, Balochistan recorded the highest fatalities in both the civilian and SF categories. Moreover, on year-on-year basis, the security situation is Balochistan has deteriorated significantly, with overall fatalities increasing from 180 in 2019 to 215 in 2020, an increase of 19.44 per cent.

Though civilian fatalities increased marginally from 83 to 84, incidents of civilian killing almost doubled from 37 in 2019 to 61 in 2020.

Fatalities in the SF category in Balochistan increases by 74.07 per cent, from 54 in 2019 to 94 in 2020. On the other hand, terrorist fatalities declined from 43 to 37. For the third year in succession, commencing 2018, the SF: terrorist fatality ratio remained in favour of the terrorists. The ratio worked out at 2.54:1 in 2020, much worse than 1.25:1 in 2019 and 1.15:1 in 2018.

Some of the major incidents targeting the SFs in Balochistan in 2020 include:

February 19, 2020: At least 16 Army personnel were killed in an attack by Balochistan Liberation Tigers (BLT) at an Army post in the Singsila area of Dera Bugti District. The BLT militants also seized all weapons and ammunition kept at the post and subsequently set the post on fire.

July 25: Six Army personnel were killed and three were injured when militants ambushed their patrol vehicles in the Pidarak Jamak area of Kech District. Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) ‘spokesman’ Major Gwahram Baloch claimed responsibility for the attack and said that such attacks would continue till the independence of Balochistan.

December 27: Seven Frontier Corps soldiers were killed during an exchange of fire that ensued when armed terrorists attacked their check-post located in the Sharig area of Harnai District.

The SFs appear to be rapidly losing ground in Balochistan, even as other parameters of violence record a surge. Overall, terrorism-linked incidents increased from 72 in 2019 to 122 in 2020.

Unsurprisingly, Pakistan's ‘kill and dump’ policy in the Province has intensified. Mutilated dead bodies, in different stages of decomposition and beyond recognition, dotting the roads of Balochistan are a common occurrence. These killing result out of enforced disappearances engineered by the Army, the intelligence agencies and their Islamist proxies.

Indeed, on June 17, 2020, the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) quit the Imran Khan-led Federal Government, angered over the Government’s failure to fulfil promises to address Baloch grievances, including the worsening problem of the ‘disappeared’ people. BNP-M President Sardar Akhtar Mengal claimed, "The law-and-order situation is worsening in Balochistan, death squads have been reactivated." As reported on July 20, 2020, when he led the BNP into an alliance with Khan’s coalition about two years ago, Akhtar Mengal gave a list of 5,128 missing people. Since then, Mengal claimed, another 1,800 have disappeared.

So alarming is the complicity of the State that, on October 1, 2020, a bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, including Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, while hearing a petition at its Quetta registry seeking recovery of missing persons in Balochistan, categorically rejected the inquiry report submitted by the Police. The Chief Justice observed,

The report was submitted to the bench by Senior Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch (Investigation), Muhammad Akbar Raisani. The Court remarked, “You are a PSP [Police Service of Pakistan] officer but you do not know how to investigate.”

Shockingly, Pakistan is now applying the strategy of enforced disappearance against dissidents among the Baloch Diaspora as well. On December 21, Balcoh dissident, Karima Baloch, was found dead under suspicious circumstances in Toronto, Canada. The body of Karima Baloch who had escaped Pakistan in 2016, was found drowned off an island just near Toronto’s lakeshore. On March 2, 2020, a Baloch journalist and activist Sajid Hussain was ‘disappeared’ from Sweden. His body was later found in a river in Uppsala on April 23, 2020. Earlier, another Baloch social activist, Rashid Hussain, was arrested and ‘disappeared’ from Sharjah, by UAE secret agencies on December 26, 2018. Rashid had been living and working in UAE for several years. After six months Rashid Hussain was illegally deported and handed over to Pakistani authorities by UAE.

Meanwhile, in retaliation Baloch insurgents have increasingly been targeting SFs as well as the economic infrastructures. Gas and oil installations in the Province were attacked on at least six different occasions in 2020, as against just two such attacks in 2019. The deadliest incident occurred when 14 persons, including seven Frontier Corps personnel and an equal number of private security guards, were killed on October 15, 2020, when Baloch militants attacked an Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) convoy on the Coastal Highway near the Ormara area of Gwadar District in Balochistan. Following the incident, Baloch Khan, the spokesperson of the Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS, Baloch National Freedom Movement), issued a statement asserting,

Balochistan remains one of the most neglected regions of Pakistan. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) 2019, Balochistan’s people are amongst the worst affected under the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

Many areas in Balochistan still lack basic facilities such as schools, roads, hospitals, etc. Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani noted, on February 25, 2019, “People could not be satisfied with such a wrong planning and development in the province (sic).”

The Federal Government continues to announce developmental projects for the Province, but this is largely an eyewash, with little benefit actually reaching the ground over the decades. On a visit to Balochistan on September 11, 2020, Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed his desire for development of the southern districts. Further, in November 2020, the Federal Cabinet announced a PKR 600-billion package for development exclusively of the nine districts of southern Balochistan over the next three years. But the recent street sit-ins in Mach subsequent to the January 3 killings and the continued deprivation faced by the people of Balochistan only highlight the dubious and brazen approach of the Federal Government in dealing with the genuine concerns of the people.

INDIA

Tripura: Deepening Ethnic Schisms
Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On January 3, 2021, Police arrested a cadre of the Biswamohan faction of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT-BM), Berajoy Tripura (30), from Chawmanu town in Dhalai District. Police recovered INR 25,000 from the militant.

On January 1, 2021, Police arrested an NLFT-BM militant, Montu Debbarma (28), from Teliamuara in Khowai District. Police recovered extorted cash worth INR 35,383 from his possession.

In 2020, Tripura recorded 11 insurgency-linked incidents, including seven incidents of arrest, two abductions-for-ransom, and two incidents of surrender. There were 10 such incidents in 2019. The 2019 incidents included five incidents of arrest, four of surrender, and one of extortion. An all-time low of five incidents (all surrenders) were recorded in 2018. Out of these 26 incidents, 22 incidents were linked to NLFT-BM, two incidents (arrests) were connected with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and two incidents remained unattributed. The 12 incidents of arrest since 2019 resulted 26 arrests: 18 from NLFBT-BM, two from JMB, and six Not Specified.

Out of the five factions of NLFT formed till date, only NLFT-BM remains somewhat active. Three factions of NLFT – one jointly commanded by Montu Koloi and Kamini Debbarma, one led by Nayanbashi Jamatiya aka Nakbar and another by Subir Debbarma – were disbanded in 2004, 2006 and 2019, respectively. A fourth faction, formed in 2014, under ‘commander’ Prabhat Jamatya is dormant.

The other terrorist outfit which was once active in the state, the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) has long been dormant. The last ATTF incident was reported on April 2, 2013, when Police arrested three suspected ATTF cadres, Manoj Debbarma, Ratan Sadhan Jamatia and Kumaribala, from the Baishnavpur border outpost area in South Tripura District. Fake Indian Currency Notes worth INR 150,000 were recovered from them. 

More importantly, most of the Arrests were made in cases linked to abduction-for-ransom. In the most recent incident, on December 7, suspected NLFT-BM militants abducted three civilians, Subrata Debnath, Ganamohan Tripura and Subhash Bhaumik, from an area between Malda Kumar Para and Hariamoni Para under Ganganagar Police Station in Dhalai District. The trio was engaged by the National Building Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC) for fencing work on the Indo-Bangladesh international border. On December 23, 2020, the families of the abducted workers claimed that the contractor of the project paid INR 1.2 million for their safe release after a series of negotiations over the preceding two weeks. According to sources, the NLFT-BM militants had initially demanded a ransom of INR 30 million for their release.

Extortion and abduction cases are significantly underreported, as families of victims often accede to demands without involving the Police. 

NLFT-BM, currently the only active insurgent group in the state, has, however, failed to carry out any terrorist attack since November 17, 2014, when a trooper of the Border Security Force and a civilian driver were killed and a civilian driver was injured in an ambush in a remote area bordering Pusparam Para under the Vangmoon Police Station in North Tripura District. Though this was the last fatal attack reported in the State, a dead body of a former NLFT faction cadre was recovered from Tuikrama Lake in Sipahijala District on December 14, 2017.

At its peak, militancy had claimed as many as 514 lives in 2004, including 453 civilians, 45 militants and 16 Security Force (SF) personnel, in Tripura.

Despite the dramatic stabilization, however, concerns persist.

Most of the incidents reported since 2019, have occurred along the unfenced areas on the Indo-Bangladesh international boundary. Of the 856 kilometre international boundary with Bangladesh in the state, 67 kilometres, stretching across South Tripura, Sipahijala and Dhalai Districts, remain unfenced. In 2020, the Border Security Force arrested at least 131 people illegally crossing the border to enter India.

More worryingly, terrorists from Bangladesh are reported to have taken refuge in the State. On March 18, 2020, SFs arrested a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operative, Abdul Malik, who originally hailed from Sylhet in Bangladesh, from Raghna village under Dharmanagar Police Station in North Tripura District.

Moreover, the State Continued 'to' experience? political polarization, mainly along ethnic lines, on issues such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill/Act, 2019; National Register for Citizen, etc. In a letter, posted on September 13, 2020, by The Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA), a political party which claims to represent indigenous tribes, the group's leader Pradyot Deb Barman, wrote a to Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT) chief Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl, urging the parties representing indigenous groups to unite ahead of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) elections. Pradyot Deb Barman wrote,

Similar appeals were made to the other group, TPF, by TIPRA. Responding to the appeal, on October 1-2, 2020, INPT and TPF leadership met TIPRA to set the ball rolling for unification. In the signed press statement shared with the media, the three parties arrived on a five-point consensus. Significantly, the three parties agreed to fight jointly on issues of CAA, NRC, Detection, Deletion and Deportation of illegal immigrants, implementation of Inner Line Permit system, and more autonomy to TTAADC etc.  

TTAADC is a 30-member body, an autonomous arrangement under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, to protect the social, economic and cultural interests of tribal populations. TTAADC covers 7,132.56 square kilometres of the total 10,300 square kilometres area of the State, nearly 70 per cent. The term of the previous TTAADC council ended on May 17, 2020. The council came under Governor’s Rule for six months due to the prevalence of Covid-19. On November 17, 2020, Governor’s Rule was extended for another six months.

The issue of the settlement of displaced Brus in Tripura has also provoked violent protests in the state. The situation turned ugly on November 21, 2020, when protestors from the Joint Movement Committee (JMC), a group of mostly Bengali settlers, blocked National Highway 8 in the Panisagar sub-division of North Tripura District, to protest against the resettlement of Bru-Reang refugees from Mizoram in the Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions of North Tripura District. Violence by protestors led to the death of Biswajit Debbarma, a Tripuri tribal and a fireman, and injuries to another 22 persons, including Police and fire service personnel, and government officials. Personnel of the Tripura State Rifles later opened fire at the protesters, resulting in the death of Srikanth Das (47), a Bengali settler.

Separately, inter-state border disputes between Mizoram and Tripura, have flared up since August 2020, when both sides reasserted their respective claims over Phuldungsei village in the Jampui Hill Range in the North Tripura District [Tripura] – Mamit District [Mizoram] area, falling along the inter-state boundary between the two states. The situation worsened when “Songrongma”, a Tripura based tribal organisation, declared it would construct a Shiv Temple and do community activities in the area on October 19 and 20.

Over the years, the Tripura Police has achieved a remarkable victory against multiple violent insurgencies. A stabilised polity and the narrowing of the tribal-non-tribal also helped restore normalcy in the State.

Unfortunately, the present polarizing politics and the realignment along tribal-non-tribal lines is recreating instability, undermining long-term gains, especially in the run-up to the TTAADC elections, which are expected to be held by April-May 2021. Further, there are apprehensions that political tensions may allow both insurgents and criminals to exploit the existing weakness along the Indo-Bangladesh border more effectively.