Quetta, May 24 : Abdul Latif Baloch, a prominent Baloch journalist, has become the latest victim of Pakistan's "kill and dump" policy in Balochistan after he was brutally shot dead in front of his wife and children inside his home in Mashkay, a tehsil of Awaran district in Balochistan province, by state-backed death squads, on Saturday.

Abdul Latif was more than a journalist in a war-torn region and was regarded as a voice for the oppressed, a documentor of Baloch suffering, resistance, and courage. In a land where speaking truth is punished with bullets, his reporting made him a target of a state that views journalism as treason.

Experts reckon that his assassination is not an isolated incident and is part of Pakistan's ongoing "kill and dump" operation, a genocidal policy to erase Baloch identity and silence all who resist.

Just a few months ago, Abdul Latif's son, Saif Baloch, along with seven other family members, were forcibly disappeared by security forces and later killed ' a horrifying indicator of how entire families are marked for elimination.

The wave of enforced disappearances and targetted shooting in Balochistan continues to intensify. In recent days, the killings of Younus Rasool and Sajid Baloch have once again revealed the terrifying scope of state violence across the region.

On May 17, Younus Rasool, son of Rasool Bakhsh and a resident of Malar Bangul Bazar in district Awaran, was forcibly disappeared in a midnight raid by Pakistani military forces. During the operation, his family members were tortured, harassed, and threatened by Frontier Corps (FC) personnel and state-backed militias known locally as "death squads". His mutilated body was found the next day.

Earlier this week, another young man, Sajid Baloch, son of Nasir Baloch from Gushanag Kolwah, also in Awaran, was forcibly disappeared under similar circumstances. His mutilated and tortured body was later found dumped by the roadside, a grim signature of Pakistan's "kill-and-dump" strategy.

"These are not isolated incidents. The Pakistani state has embraced a hardline policy of suppression, operating with complete disregard for constitutional rights, due process, or human dignity. Under the pretense of security, Baloch lives are being systematically erased. The situation has reached a critical humanitarian tipping point," said a Baloch activist.

Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) also demanded urgent international attention and called upon the United Nations, global media, and press freedom watchdogs to break their silence and act against these crimes against humanity to take urgent notice of the atrocities in Balochistan, asserting that the lives of Baloch civilians, students, labourers, activists, and children, are under immediate threat from an unchecked campaign of state terror.

/IANS