Balochistan’s grievances are neither anew, nor are they lessening. With every shift in the state’s upper mindsets, the policies reshape for dealing with Balochistan – though toughening. In the latest phase of victimization, the region is gravely suffering from multiple chaos including a growth of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, different modes of harassment, distorting social and ancient norms, working to establish civil clashes, and a lot more. Only in the present, there are some important happenings, including protesting sit-ins, social media campaigns and so forth – with a similar silent and ignorant nature of state media towards Balochistan.
On December 26, security forces enter a home in Dazin area of district Kech’s Tump tehsil and abducted mid-40s Zareef Baloch. A day later on December 27, his lifeless body was found in the area with marks of torture – including cutting his tongue, use of injections and beating. The family and the area’s people, instead of burying the body, chose to resist. They took the corpse and were en route to Turbat city for the post-mortem, when they were stopped at Kolahoo cross (Asiyabad) in the tehsil by security forces, refraining them from movement with the body. They asked to either hand them over the body – though the forces are alleged of having him killed – or bury him silently, while negating the allegations of his abduction and murder.
Apart from this, they (forces) blocked all the internal and main roads in Tump and of arrival from Turbat, while continuously “harassed and threatened” the family of harsh consequences. All in vain. After noting the body’s changing situation with no medications available, the family was convinced to bury the body on December 28, but they did not quit on. After the burial rituals, the family turned to Turbat city where they organized a protesting sit-in at Turbat’s Shaheed Fida Chowk. Today, on January 3, after continuously failed negotiations with the local body, the family have marched and blocked D-Baloch at Turbat calling on authorities to provide justice to the grieving family.
Along with Zareef’s family, Buleda’s Naveed Baloch’s family are also participants in the protest calling on justice and accountability for Naveed by producing the culprits before the court. On December 6 this year, Naveed was called to take along his abducted-by-forces cousin. Informing his family, he went but did not return the whole day. The very early in the next morning, his corpse was found in a river in Buleda. Naveed was active in protests for the safe release of his cousin and area fellows in Turbat, who, the family allege, became a victim of state oppressions. They are demanding fair investigation for his murder which, they feel, the administration is reluctant to do.
Along with them, there are several families of forcibly disappeared Baloch from across the region, calling for safe and timely release of their loved ones. Other than coming out on roads and blocking main highways, the families believe, there are no other ways to get their loved ones released from state’s illegal prisons, or getting justice.
It is not only the D-Baloch that is closed, but the same CPEC road is also blocked from Kech’s Hoshap area where families of Zaman Jan and Abul Hassan are protesting against the abduction of their loved ones from their home on December 16, and showing their “fake arrest” from Qila Abdullah district on January 1 with “false charges” of being members of a banned organization.
Amid all these chaos, one wonders Balochistan merely a colony of the past centuries where human rights are merely daydreams. For the Baloch, justice has only driven its meaning as more abductions, illegal and fake charges and more human rights violations. “Human rights have succumbed to injuries in Balochistan” resulting in daily inhumane state practices. They want peace and prosperity which the state and its “selected and self-claimed” governments have never prioritized.
