The Mangi Dam police outpost attack in Ziarat killed 27 officers, with the Pakistan army accused of failing to provide timely reinforcements, ammunition support, or recovery of bodies, highlighting institutional apathy toward lower-ranking security personnel.

The article criticizes the Pakistan army’s approach in Balochistan, including merging the more effective local Balochistan Levies with the regular police, reluctance to accept responsibility, and reliance on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

It questions the credibility of the announced judicial commission, suggesting it will likely shield the military from accountability, and calls for restoring the Balochistan Levies as a potential solution despite Field Marshal Asim Munir’s opposition.

“Look at my identity card; Pakistan [army] has issued this to me…I request, for God’s sake, my father is disabled, and I am the eldest at home. Do not commit this injustice by saying that we’re not your personnel” — Plea made by soldier captured by Baloch Liberation Army after the Pakistan army disowned him, February 2026.

It was during this very same month in 1999, that the Pakistan army’s top brass exposed barefaced apathy towards its rank and file killed in combat during the Kargil war by refusing to accept their dead bodies. Denied military honours and a final resting place in their own country, these dead army men were nevertheless lucky to receive military funerals in accordance with Islamic burial rites thanks to the Indian army.

27 years have since elapsed and though the Pakistan army has officially accepted its role in the Kargil war, it has made no efforts whatsoever to repatriate mortal remains of these soldiers, indicating the continuing disconnect between Generals in Rawalpindi and soldiers on the battlefield. And recent events in Balochistan further highlight the existence that its base mindset has turned far more perverse.

Abandoning the Living

On January 31, the Balochistan Liberation Army [BLA] took seven Pakistan army soldiers in custody during Operation Herof-2 and videos in which these men in uniform were seen displaying their military issue identity cards and frantically appealing to the authorities for negotiating their release. BLA issued a seven- day ultimatum for negotiations for prisoner exchange and extended the same by another seven more days.

But the Pakistan army responded by saying that none of its soldiers were either missing or in custody of Baloch fighters. This categorical denial in itself should have put all speculation to rest, because if the seven men in uniform seen in the video weren’t Pakistan army soldiers then the question of any negotiations obviously didn’t arise. So, why did BLA demand negotiations for prisoner swap if it didn’t have Pakistan army men in its custody?

It may........

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