Iron Purdah?

An independent account of those killings emerged after teams from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission (PHRC) led by human rights activist and famous lawyer Asma Jahangir visited Dera Bugti town in Pakistan's Balochistan province, in January 2006, nine months after the killings there. The human rights commission published its report later last year. Among the pieces of evidence presented to the human rights team was a video that a resident had managed to take of some of the violence—and of the dead. In the face of silence from Pakistani authorities, Baloch political leaders smuggled that video out of the country. This video is now being circulated among political and human rights groups as some indication of the face of Pakistani military authorities in Pakistan.

"This has been shown to members of parliament here and to members of the European parliament," a Baloch opposition leader campaigning to raise awareness of Baloch human rights issues told Outlook. "We will take it to every international forum if necessary to show the world the true face of what is going on, so that they know."