Peshawar, 26 September 2025. A fact-finding mission to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa led by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is alarmed by the rapidly diminishing writ of the state and the government’s seeming inability to protect citizens’ right to life and liberty, particularly in the merged districts.
Comprising HRCP chairperson Asad Iqbal Butt, co-chair Munizae Jahangir, treasurer and veteran journalist Husain Naqi, vice-chair Akbar Khan, academic and HRCP member Dr Saba Gul Khattak and HRCP staff members Shahid Mehmood and Salman Farrukh, the mission held meetings from 24 to 26 September 2025 with a wide range of civil society—including the press, the legal community, human rights defenders, and families displaced by conflict—as well as with political party leaders, law enforcement officials and senior members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, including the chief minister.
Principally, local communities and stakeholders have highlighted a worrying link between increasing violence, displacement and security operations, and the extraction of natural resources under the proposed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mines and Minerals Act 2025. In many parts of the merged districts, militants appear to be operating unhindered, reportedly extorting and harassing residents, killing those who refuse to comply, and restricting people’s movement beyond the afternoons. Some reports suggest that law enforcement agencies have ceased to operate in these areas.
The mission is especially concerned about the recent killings in Tirah, in which reportedly over 20 civilians, including women and children, were killed, allegedly under aerial bombardment. The mission has demanded a credible inquiry, urging the provincial and federal authorities to cease shifting blame onto one another. Inadequate compensation to victims’ families cannot be a substitute for state accountability and due process.
The mission notes with concern that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Ordinance 2019, an impugned law still in force, continues to legitimise internment centres and preventive detention in clear violation of Article 10 of the Constitution and Pakistan’s international legal commitments. Moreover, decreased judicial and administrative oversight, alongside weak regulatory mechanisms, continue to perpetuate the practice of enforced disappearances, with allegations of thousands of cases reported, despite far lower official figures.
The mission has further documented the harassment of journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders, particularly those advocating against enforced disappearances. The allegation that law enforcement and security agencies have been complicit in forcibly disappearing people who are then traced to internment centres is of grave concern and merits an immediate response from the government.
The mission has also documented serious reservations expressed by the legal community regarding the revival of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, which risk creating a parallel justice system that lacks credibility and undermines the rule of law.
The mission concludes that there appears to be a clear effort to undo the hard-won constitutional merger of 2018, which will not only reverse social and economic progress, but will also prove disastrous for the rights of vulnerable groups, particularly women and transgender persons, living in these areas.
Farah Zia
Director
