Zeeshan Zaheer, a 21-year-old student and resident of Khudabadan in Panjgur district, was abducted by armed men from Football Chowk on the evening of June 29, 2025. His body was discovered the following morning near Garib Nawaz Hotel in the Surdu area of Panjgur, bearing multiple gunshot wounds. Police and hospital sources confirmed that Zeeshan had been shot several times before being dumped at the location. His body was shifted to Teaching Hospital Panjgur for postmortem and other formalities.
This tragic killing adds to a long-standing history of violence against Zeeshan’s family. In 2013, his father, Zaheer, and nephew Sameer were fired upon by Frontier Corps personnel while traveling on a motorcycle. Sameer died of his injuries, while Zaheer, who sustained five bullet wounds, was taken to Karachi for treatment and continued to receive medical care thereafter.
On April 13, 2015, while going to attend one of these medical visits in Karachi, Zaheer was forcibly taken off a bus by security forces in Hub and disappeared. Despite continuous efforts by his family—including submissions to the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) and leading a 52-day protest camp in Quetta, Zaheer’s fate remains unknown.
In the years since, Zeeshan and his sister Adeeba became vocal advocates against enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Both supported other affected families and persistently called for justice. Their activism came with risks: earlier this year, Adeeba was named in an FIR for participating in a protest against enforced disappearances.
The extrajudicial killing of Zeeshan Zaheer has plunged the family into deeper anguish. The Human Rights Council of Balochistan is gravely alarmed by the spike in enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the region. Killings by state forces have surged by over 75% in just the first five months of 2025 compared to the entire year of 2024. We strongly condemn this brutal act and call on the state to end its policies of violence and intimidation against civilians.
