Author: Saira Baloch
After the enforced disappearance of my brothers, the days of life are spent in organizing protests. For their recovery, it was decided to set up a camp in front of the National Press Club, Islamabad, along with the families of other enforcedly disappeared. We went to Quetta from Khuzdar and from there we left for Islamabad.
Balochistan, where the morning begins not with the chirping of birds, but with mourning. We had to go to the Capital city to protest against the oppression that the news of the extrajudicial killing of four forcibly disappeared youth from Turbat reached us. Such news breaks our hearts that we are familiar with this pain and the same fear every day we are living with.
On the evening of November 25th, we had to go to Islamabad and on the same day a protest rally was going to be held in Quetta against the extrajudicial killing of Balach. We joined the rally with the relatives of hundreds of forcibly disappeared persons and political parties to raise their voice to those who have no heart in their chests and do not hesitate to kill and throw the mothers’ sons in the deserts. There is even no freedom of speech in Balochistan and those who are being killed do not even have the right to protest. Barbed wires were laid on our way but after lots of resistance our rally reached in front of Governor House Quetta and we recorded our protest.
On our journey to Islamabad, I was accompanied by the mother of the missing Saeed Ahmed, Jahanzib’s mother and niece Mah Noor and Rashid Baloch’s family was coming from Karachi to join us.
The journey was passing in this conflict whether I would be able to recover my brothers this time or the long series of protests would pass like this. In a state of helplessness, I kept thinking that I had gone round the commissions and courts, staged sit-ins in front of the governor’s house, but nothing has come to us except empty promises.
The painful moments spent in the sit-in in front of the Governor’s House are etched in my mind. Continuous rain, in the freezing cold of Quetta, Baloch mothers, who were sitting with the hope that the powerful forces would be forced to listen to their cries and help them recover their sons. Seema’s scream still echoes in my ears. That evening, when we ran out on the sound of the scream, Seema was lying unconscious on the rain mud on the road and little Sharul(her daughter) had fallen from her hands.
On November 27th we pitched our camp in front of the National Press Club, our demands were the same as we have been repeating for many years that our loved ones should be recovered. If they have committed any crime then follow your own laws and the constitution so that we will get free from the collective suffering. Every day we go through the painful thoughts of how our loved ones are suffering in the torture cells of Pakistan.
Those who maintain the system of oppression do not have humanity but there are some pure souls who are burning the candle of humanity and among them Hamid Mir, Asad Ali Toor, Senator Mushtaq and friends of PTM came to our camp, became our voice and and showed solidarity with us.
When the students’ case was being heard in the Islamabad High Court, we also appeared there, where Sarfarza Bugti (the caretaker interior minister at that time) was representing the state. The world is aware of the oppression of the state in Balochistan but the representatives of the state are not ready to open their eyes.
The state representatives do not realize the pain we are going through. My cousin, Rashid’s mother spent her last moments with this pain and went into eternal sleep reciting Rashid instead of Allah. Sarfraz Bugti may not know that instead of taking care of my ailing mother, I am knocking on the doors of the halls of capital of Pakistan.
Sarfraz Bugti remained silent when the High Court judge inquired him about the case of missing students.The court gave clear orders that they were not ready to accept the government’s position until we, the girls and mothers, come forward and say that our loved ones have been recovered by January 10th, 2024. If the forcibly disappeared students (whose cases are pending in the court) are not recovered, he would order an FIR against Sarfraz and the Prime Minister. The judge’s decision raised our hope that the court’s orders may be followed, but outside the court Sarfraz Bugti, representing the state’s narrative, continued to make fun of this serious matter of human right violation. The orders remained only orders and could not be implemented. The FIR could not be filed against Sarfraz and Anwar ul Haq Kakar, instead Sarfraz Bugti was given a seat in the Balochistan Assembly as a share in the Balochistan government.
Furthermore, we had heard from our elders that the relationship between Islamabad and Baloch was established through violence, but we hoped our voice would be heard now. And our elders were proved right when the state revealed its true colors towards Baloch on the cold nights of December.
We witnessed the heart-rending scenes that we would not forget for the rest of our lives. The eighty-year-old women, who had already been living under the shadow of oppression in Balochistan for two decades, were subjected to torture by the state police. The children who were not yet familiar with the realities of life, also learned about the violence of the state. The police tortured us, dragged us on the roads and threw us into the cars. Those were the horrible moments when the police pulled our headscarves, the clothes of our mothers and sisters were torn, thinking of that horrible scene still gives me goose bumps. We, who were protesting for the recovery of forcibly disappeared brothers, were helpless to see that the brothers who were involved in our protest were being subjected to torture in front of us and they were being arrested in a state of unconsciousness. If the state could torture us in its Capital and in front of the world and media, we can’t imagine what it can do to our loved ones imprisoned in its torture cells for years.
For two months, our protest continued to awaken the conscience of the world, but that protest was also imprisoned like our brothers in the barbed wires in front of the National Press Club. There were barbed wires, police checkpoints, restrictions on food items and a ban on bringing blankets into the camp in the freezing cold of Islamabad. There were attempts to prevent people with good morals from joining, but our resistance continued and we continued the movement successfully, enduring these tactics, spending many days in jails, enduring threats from the police.
The system of repression in Balochistan has been going on for two decades, but due to the silence of the media and the non-access of international institutions, the stories of the atrocities committed on us are suppressed. Moreover, in these two months, we have succeeded in making the world aware of the atrocities committed on the Baloch nation.
Despite enduring all the hardships of the families struggling with the sufferings of enforced disappearances, the helplessness has not ended. The pain that we went to Islamabad to end is still there today. The long and painful wait has not ended yet.
The unforgettable struggle of Baloch mothers has kept alive the hope that through collective resistance we will be able to recover our loved ones from the torture cells of the state and our resistance will continue until our loved ones return safe and sound.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Balochistan Post or any of its editors.