Baloch parents send their children in Balochistan’s capital city (Quetta) for a better education with a lot of desires for their future, but situations in Quetta portray a worse picture these days where students are less seen in classes and more in protests. They protest for justice for a different issue arising each day; sometimes they protest for medical seats and sometimes for baton charge on students, sometimes for improving the quality of education and sometimes for the disappearances of students from educational institutions.
Nevertheless, Quetta has become the city of protest now-a-days. It is not that students protest by their own desire, but due to the authorities who infringe their fundamental rights. Students get compelled to take on to the roads to protest for the provision of their rights granted by the constitution and other law-giving authorities.
It is really woeful to see students in a condition where no one wishes to be. The students, instead of having pens and books, have the charts demanding for justice for their fellow students. They are distressed with the education system of Balochistan where they face bundles of hardships. On one hand, they are mentally tortured with a rough education, and on the other hand, they are rendered with unending queries for their lives outside the educational institutions. Amidst the given circumstances, how can students focus on education?
The students in Quetta burn midnight oil to make their future bright, but despite helping them through, they (the authorities) are directing them to a state of gloom through different means. Firstly, the poor students have to work from dawn to dusk to get admission into a good university. And when they succeed in securing admission into a university, they are kept unsafe even inside the varsity.
As we have the recent example of the disappearances of two students, Sohail Baloch and Fassieh Baloch, who were abducted in broad daylight from the hostel of University of Balochistan on November 1. The other fellow students staged a protest inside the university for twenty days during which university was closed by the students. They demanded the safe recovery of the two students who are still missing.
Protesting students question the State that what their sin was for which they were whisked away from hostel and kept in trepidation. It has become a question mark on the faces of authorities that why the students are being abducted, that too from the university premise. Besides that, the other students are concern as to their safety because it has led them to serious mental trauma that students are getting abducted inside the institutions these days.
If this trend continues as same, then those days are near when education will no more become an option for the parents in Balochistan for their children. We are marching towards a dark era which will not merely be a big loss in national level, but state will also suffer from the consequences of the illiteracy of people out here. It is yet to see how the new government of the province deals with issues faced by the students in Balochistan.