By Umer Azad
It has been more than three weeks since the massacre in Muridke, and yet, like every other atrocity in Pakistan’s recent history, it has already faded into silence. No independent inquiry, no accountability, and no outrage. Just another blip on the national radar, buried under state propaganda and foreign-policy theatre.
Less than a year earlier, between November 24 and November 27, 2024, Islamabad had witnessed the same script. Thousands of supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had gathered to protest the unlawful imprisonment of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a detention condemned by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The regime’s response was identical: live ammunition, tear gas, and a nationwide communication blackout. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands detained. In one chilling video from those days, security forces threw an unarmed man off a shipping container while he was praying. Journalists covering the carnage, including Matiullah Jan and Shakir Mehmood Awan, were arrested. Another journalist, Ahmed Farhad, was forced into hiding. Together, these two massacres reveal a pattern that can no longer be explained away as “excessive force.” This is systematic state violence: deliberate, rehearsed, and rewarded.
In the case of Muridke, the reward was immediate. Within days, reports emerged that Pakistan’s military establishment had entered advanced discussions with the United States and Israel, brokered through the CIA and Mossad, to deploy up to 20,000 Pakistani troops to Gaza as part of a so-called peacekeeping initiative. According to investigations by Firstpost and Dawn, the deal positions Pakistan as a proxy force under a U.S.-led regional framework. The Muridke massacre, in this context, looks less like domestic repression and more like a demonstration of capability, a live-fire performance meant to show Washington and Tel Aviv how efficiently Pakistan’s generals can subdue dissent, whether in Punjab or Palestine.
This is what Pakistan’s pursuit of Western validation now costs: blood for legitimacy. A regime that guns down its citizens for waving the Palestinian flag is now marketing itself as a stabilizing force in Gaza. The same commanders who unleashed bullets on protesters in Muridke will soon don peacekeeping badges, hailed abroad as partners in “regional security.” The Muridke massacre is far from an isolated event; it is the latest demonstration of a regime that has systematically dismantled Pakistan’s democratic institutions and crushed dissent at every turn. By demonstrating the capacity to crush dissent at home with impunity, the generals signal to foreign powers that they can act decisively abroad as well.
It must be noted that over the last three years, the military has overthrown an elected government, jailed political opponents including former Prime Minister Imran Khan on blatantly fabricated charges; orchestrated an utterly sham election marred by widespread electoral rigging, as corroborated by the Commonwealth Observer Group; and persecuted journalists, forcing many into exile. The judiciary has been browbeaten into submission, stripped of independence, and routinely threatened by state actors. Civilians are being tried in military courts in clear violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Although this entrenched pattern of repression has prompted legislative responses abroad – including H.R. 901, which condemns Pakistan’s accelerating authoritarianism and calls for accountability for its military leadership, and H.R. 5271, the Global Human Rights Accountability Act, which extends the Magnitsky framework to sanction those responsible for gross human-rights abuses – any meaningful application of these mechanisms remains highly unlikely.
This is primarily because on top of the military crackdown, the current prime minister of Pakistan, installed after one of the most brazenly rigged elections in the country’s history and serving as little more than a civilian façade for the army chief, has shown himself willing to go to any lengths for Western approval. His nomination of Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize was in fact a masterclass in servility, performed to shield Pakistan’s generals from further international scrutiny. At best, the international response can be expected to issue a perfunctory statement admonishing Pakistan not to violate human rights, while – as has become customary – turning a blind eye, much like Canada, which recognizes the State of Palestine yet remains far from imposing any meaningful arms embargo.
Muridke is a blueprint of a regime that has learned to trade blood for approval. The current regime has not only betrayed its people but has also institutionalized repression as an instrument of foreign policy. The generals have discovered that the road to Washington and Tel Aviv runs through the corpses of their own citizens. In Muridke, they offered the ultimate demonstration of how swiftly and brutally dissent can be crushed in the name of order. And in doing so, it appears that they have been able to sell their brand: an affordable, merciless, expendable mercenary army wrapped in a Muslim tag and offered to do Israel’s bidding for a cheap dime.
Sign up for future webinars, educational resources and insights on US’ Role in Pakistan & Afghanistan!
Umer Azad is a software engineer by profession and a volunteer with CODEPINK and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). He previously served as the Regional Social Media Expert for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), where he worked on digital outreach, exposing voter fraud, and documenting human rights violations.
