In October 2022, one of the most shocking discoveries in Pakistan’s troubled history came to light when over 400 rotting corpses were found abandoned on the rooftop of Nishtar Hospital in Multan, Punjab. When rumors first started circulating on social media in October 2022, most people dismissed them as another conspiracy theory. But the videos that began surfacing told a different story- one so horrific that even hardened investigators struggled to process what they were seeing. On the rooftop of Nishtar Hospital in Multan, over 400 corpses were rotting in the open, abandoned like garbage. This wasn’t just medical negligence. This was something far more sinister.
Bodies That Tell a Story
The first thing that struck investigators wasn’t the sheer number of corpses, but their condition. Several bodies showed clear surgical incisions where chests had been torn open and organs removed. The clothing told another story entirely—traditional salwars and the robust build typical of people from mountainous regions. These weren’t local Punjabi or Siraiki residents whose families might come looking for them.
Dr. Maryam Ashraf from Nishtar Medical University tried to explain away the horror, claiming the bodies were “unclaimed, unidentified bodies” used for medical education. But medical experts who examined the footage noted something disturbing: proper medical cadavers are embalmed and preserved, not left to decompose in the open air.
What made this discovery even more chilling was the systematic nature of the disposal. Hospital officials admitted that these bodies had been accumulating for months, possibly years. They blamed police and rescue services for not collecting the bodies quickly enough, but couldn’t explain why proper preservation methods weren’t used.
The Baloch Connection – Pakistan Army’s Kill and Dump Policy
The timing of this discovery coincided with a massive surge in enforced disappearances from Balochistan. In August 2025 alone, human rights organizations documented 123 cases of enforced disappearance in the province. Most victims were taken during house raids by Pakistani security forces, while others were abducted from streets, shops, and offices. What’s particularly disturbing is the pattern that emerges when you track these disappearances. Quetta recorded the highest number of abductions with 27 cases, followed by Kech with 25 and Dera Bugti with 15. These are the same regions where the Pakistani military has been conducting its so-called “counter-terrorism” operations against Baloch activists.
The numbers tell a grim story. Of the 123 people who disappeared in August, 106 remain missing, 12 were released, and five were killed while in custody. But these official figures don’t account for the bodies that never make it into the statistics – the ones that end up dumped on hospital rooftops hundreds of kilometers away.
Recent events have made this connection even more explicit. In late September 2025, four Baloch men were forcibly disappeared from Buleda in Kech district. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found the next morning in the Sorap dam area. Janzeb Baloch, a laborer from Gwadar, was abducted on September 28 and found dead in Uthal three days later.
These incidents reveal the systematic nature of Pakistan’s approach to dealing with Baloch dissent. The military doesn’t just disappear people they follow a calculated strategy of abduction, torture, execution, and disposal designed to terrorize the population while maintaining plausible deniability.
The process typically follows a predictable pattern. Pakistani forces, often working with local “death squads,” abduct individuals during night raids or while they’re traveling. The victims are taken to secret facilities where they face brutal torture including electrocution, hanging upside down, and severe beatings. Many die during this process, while others are executed in staged encounters. What happens next is where the Nishtar Hospital discovery becomes crucial. Bodies are transported far from where the victims lived, making identification difficult and preventing families from conducting proper burials. In documented cases, organs are harvested before disposal, feeding into Pakistan’s massive illegal transplant trade.
The Pakistani military’s involvement in organ trafficking has been an open secret for years. In 2023, authorities finally acknowledged a trafficking ring that had stolen kidneys from over 300 people. But what they didn’t acknowledge was the military’s own role in harvesting organs from disappeared persons before dumping their bodies in remote locations or facilities like Nishtar Hospital.
Current Uprisings Expose the Pattern
The horror of Nishtar Hospital cannot be separated from the massive uprisings currently sweeping across Pakistan’s occupied territories. In September and October 2025, both Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) and Balochistan erupted in protests that exposed the brutal reality of Pakistani military rule.
The POK Bloodbath
The protests in POK began peacefully on September 29, 2025, with demonstrators demanding basic rights including reduced electricity tariffs, subsidized flour, and an end to corrupt privileges for political elites. The response from Pakistani forces was swift and brutal. Security personnel opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, killing at least 12 civilians and injuring over 200.
The casualties were not random. Five protesters were shot dead in Muzaffarabad, five in Dheerkot, and two in Dadyal. The precision of these killings suggests systematic targeting rather than crowd control gone wrong. Pakistani forces deployed thousands of additional troops and imposed complete communication blackouts to prevent news of the massacres from spreading.
What makes these killings even more significant is the slogan protesters were chanting: “Kashmir is ours, we will decide its fate”. For the first time in decades, POK residents were directly challenging not just local administrators but the entire Pakistani establishment.
Balochistan’s Continuous Resistance
Meanwhile, Balochistan witnessed its own massive uprising following an ISI-orchestrated suicide attack on a Baloch National Party rally that killed 15 people. The protests spread across every major city and town in the province, from Quetta and Mastung to Gwadar and Panjgur.
Pakistani forces responded with their usual brutality, opening fire on peaceful demonstrators and imposing province-wide communication shutdowns. The military’s reaction reveals their desperation-they know they’re losing control of territories they’ve ruled through fear for decades.
Also Read, Occupation Of Balochistan: Betrayal Lest We Forget
But The International Silence
What makes the Nishtar Hospital scandal even more disturbing is the international community’s muted response. Despite clear evidence of systematic human rights violations, major powers have remained largely silent. This silence enables Pakistan’s military establishment to continue their policies of disappearance, torture, and murder with impunity.
India has been one of the few countries to consistently condemn Pakistan’s actions. Following the POK massacres, India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated that the unrest is “a natural consequence of Pakistan’s oppressive approach and systemic plundering of resources”. India has called for Pakistan to be held accountable for its “horrific human rights violations” in occupied territories.
But condemnation alone isn’t enough. The bodies rotting on Nishtar Hospital’s rooftop represent real people who had families, dreams, and rights. They deserved better than to become anonymous corpses in Pakistan’s machinery of state terror.
When the Nishtar Hospital scandal broke, Pakistani authorities immediately went into damage control mode. Three doctors and several hospital employees were suspended to create the impression of accountability. But these token actions couldn’t hide the systematic nature of what had occurred.
The most telling aspect of the government’s response was their refusal to conduct DNA tests on the bodies. Despite demands from lawmakers and human rights groups, hospital authorities rejected calls for proper identification procedures. Instead, 66 of the bodies were hastily buried by hospital administration and the Edhi Foundation.
This refusal to allow DNA testing reveals the government’s true fears. They know that genetic analysis would likely confirm what many suspect—that these bodies belong to missing persons from Balochistan and other occupied territories. Such confirmation would expose the full extent of Pakistan’s systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing.
A Pattern of State Terror Continues…
The Nishtar Hospital discovery, when viewed alongside current events in POK and Balochistan, reveals a consistent pattern of state-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan’s military establishment maintains control not through legitimacy or popular support, but through systematic violence designed to crush any challenge to their authority.
From the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai who was shot for advocating education, to the hundreds of decomposing bodies found on a hospital rooftop, to the ongoing massacres in POK and Balochistan, the same story emerges again and again. Pakistan’s establishment fears its own people and will go to any length including murder, torture, and organ harvesting to maintain power.
The courage shown by protesters in POK and Balochistan proves that this reign of terror cannot last forever. People are willing to risk everything for basic dignity and rights. The bodies at Nishtar Hospital cry out for justice, while the ongoing resistance across Pakistan’s occupied territories demonstrates that truth cannot be buried along with the evidence of state crimes.
The international community must recognize these events for what they are – not isolated incidents of unrest, but systematic crimes against humanity that demand accountability. The rotting corpses on a hospital rooftop are not just a medical scandal; they are evidence of genocide. And until Pakistan faces consequences for these actions, the killing will continue.
