Balochistan is a region with multiple hurdles created by the authorities in power with ultimate human rights violations including enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, fake encounters and so on. All these activities are the evidents of state-backed violence in Balochistan.
On February 4 this year, the state-hired local militias stormed a local restaurant, Ghamshad hotel, in the city, martyring a Baloch scholar, Allah Dad Baloch. Within seconds, the Baloch were to mourn the unwilling departure of a young intellectual and linguaphile forever.
Allah Dad Baloch, an alumnus of Karachi University and an MPhil scholar at Quaid-e-Azam University, was a prominent intellectual within the Baloch community. He belonged to a group of educated individuals in the society who were deeply engaged in scholarly pursuits, including reading, writing, and the pursuit of knowledge. His proficiency in historical research and his efforts to translate important texts into Balochi were instrumental in promoting awareness and intellectual growth among the Baloch people. He always worked for the collective Baloch interests, encouraging the Baloch students to read books.
Apart from this, he also contributed in various means to publish books, literary and magazines. His selfless efforts fostered a culture of literacy, intellectual curiosity, and critical thinking, yet his brutal murder is a stark reminder of state’s systematic targeting of educated Baloch individuals educational, whether studying in the institutions of Balochistan or outside.
This relentless persecution aims to stifle the collective consciousness of the Baloch people, perpetuating a cycle of oppression that has plagued the region for far too long.
The planned killing of Allah Dad represents a devastating blow, not only to his family and community but also to the educated youths of the society. This disgraceful act perpetuates the systemic violence and human rights violation that has been always occurring with the indigenous people, perpetuating a cycle of genocide that has been persistently overlooked.
We demand from all human rights organizations to raise the effective voice against this serious state oppression, Baloch genocide and unjust killing of Allah Dad Baloch. We also need to emerge as a national blockage for such state-sponsored violence which will definitely ingest us all one by one. Resistance remains the pure means to fight such violations.
