Azhar Rashid Khan PSP

The story of Balochistan today is one of parallel suffering — of people caught between insurgent violence and an unending cycle of state operations, and of security personnel paying the ultimate price for a conflict that force alone cannot resolve. Each headline about militants “neutralised” in Awaran or Kech is swiftly followed by reports of police or Frontier Corps (FC) personnel ambushed in the same districts. The result is a grim stalemate — one that continues to drain the province of life, trust, and hope.

In early 2025 alone, several attacks underscored this costly deadlock: a roadside bomb in Noshki killed five FC officers; another in Mastung targeted a police bus, killing three and injuring sixteen.¹ These tragic losses are not isolated incidents. According to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) Security Report 2024, Balochistan accounted for more than one-third of all security personnel fatalities in Pakistan.²

Beyond Counter-Terrorism: The Governance Deficit

The crisis in Balochistan is not merely a law-and-order issue. It is rooted in decades of exclusion, unresponsive governance, and inequitable development. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) notes that despite being Pakistan’s richest province in natural resources, Balochistan remains the poorest in human development — its literacy rate hovers below 46%, and over 70% of its population lacks access to clean water.³ This contradiction fuels discontent and provides insurgent groups enduring local sympathy.

The state’s traditional response has been militarised control — fortified check-posts, mass detentions, and counter-insurgency operations. Yet, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) observed in “Balochistan’s Fragile Peace”, these approaches alienate communities, erode local intelligence networks, and perpetuate mistrust between the people and the state.⁴ In effect, the state’s own coercive model sustains the very instability it seeks to contain.

Democratising the Police: A Path to Peace

Sustainable peace in Balochistan requires transforming the policing paradigm — from coercion to collaboration. This means democratising the police by embedding transparency, local accountability, and proportional representation in law enforcement structures.

Unlike other provinces, the Balochistan Police remains chronically under-resourced. According to the National Police Bureau (NPB), it constitutes less than 10% of the province’s total law enforcement footprint, while the paramilitary FC dominates field operations. ⁵ This imbalance undermines community trust and isolates local voices from decision-making.

Reform should include:

1. Community Policing and Local Recruitment: Establishing community liaison boards in districts like Turbat and Khuzdar — modelled on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Police Reforms (2014–18) — can integrate tribal elders, teachers, and youth representatives in local security planning.⁶ These mechanisms proved effective in KP, where community partnership improved intelligence sharing and reduced violence by over 30%.
2. Civilian Oversight and Transparency: Creating a Provincial Police Accountability Commission, comprising retired judges, journalists, and Baloch community leaders, could monitor abuses and rebuild trust. This aligns with Article 40 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which guarantees fair adjudication for rights violations.⁷
3. Inclusive Recruitment: Increasing the representation of Baloch, Pashtun, and minority groups — particularly women — in police ranks can transform it from a symbol of state authority into a partner of the people. According to UNDP Pakistan (2022), gender- and ethnicity-inclusive policing correlates strongly with improved public cooperation in post-conflict areas.⁸

UNDRIP and the Right to Development Participation

At the heart of Balochistan’s crisis lies a denial of participation in its own development. Despite contributing majorly to Pakistan’s natural resource wealth — through Sui gas, Saindak copper, and Reko Diq gold reserves — the province receives less than 12% of revenue from its extractive industries.⁹ Communities in Gwadar, Awaran, and Dera Bugti have long complained that decisions on development projects are made without local consent or consultation.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) offers a framework to rectify this imbalance. Articles 26–32 affirm indigenous peoples’ rights to control and benefit from their lands and resources, and require Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) before any development or extractive activity occurs.¹⁰ If implemented in Balochistan, these principles would mandate that local communities — through their elected representatives — participate in environmental assessments, project planning, and revenue distribution.

Ground realities make this not just idealistic but necessary. The Gwadar Ko Haq Do Tehreek (2021–22), led by local clerics and fishermen, was a civic movement for basic rights — electricity, water, and fishing access — not an anti-state campaign.¹¹ Similarly, in Reko Diq, many local residents allege exclusion from consultation processes despite multi-billion-dollar investments.¹² These cases show how development without participation breeds alienation, which militant groups readily exploit.

By aligning national development projects with UNDRIP’s participatory model, Pakistan can convert resistance into partnership. It would also strengthen the credibility of its commitments under Agenda 2030’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

From Force to Justice

The lesson is clear: peace cannot be imposed; it must be built through inclusion, justice, and accountability. Over-reliance on militarised governance endangers not only Baloch civilians but also the men and women serving in uniform.

Investing in inclusive development, community policing, and participatory resource governance would cost far less — in human and fiscal terms — than a perpetual war of attrition. As Amartya Sen argues in Development as Freedom, true development is “the expansion of human capability and freedom.”¹³

Applying that vision to Balochistan means shifting from control to cooperation, from extraction to empowerment, and from the politics of fear to the practice of trust. Only then can Pakistan’s bleeding frontier begin to heal — not through the barrel of a gun, but through the building of a just and inclusive peace.

Endnotes

1. “Blast Targets Police Van in Mastung,” Dawn, January 2025.
2. Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Pakistan Security Report 2024 (Islamabad: PIPS, 2025).
3. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), Balochistan Development Indicators 2023 (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 2024).
4. International Crisis Group (ICG), Balochistan’s Fragile Peace (Brussels: ICG, 2023).
5. National Police Bureau (NPB), Annual Policing Report 2023 (Islamabad: Ministry of Interior, 2024).
6. Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Police Reforms Evaluation Report (Peshawar: Home Department, 2018).
7. United Nations, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (New York: UN, 2007), Art. 40.
8. UNDP Pakistan, Community Security and Social Cohesion in Post-Conflict Areas (Islamabad: UNDP, 2022).
9. Ministry of Finance, Pakistan Economic Survey 2023–24 (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 2024).
10. United Nations, UNDRIP, Arts. 26–32.
11. “Gwadar Protests: Citizens Demand Rights, Not Politics,” The News International, December 2021.
12. “Reko Diq Locals Demand Inclusion in Project Benefits,” Dawn, October 2023.
13. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

The author is former Addl. Inspector General of Police and a geo-political analyst.