By Sangeen Baluch
May had arrived quietly, like every other month before it, without warning, without omen, without the slightest indication that it would soon carry a sorrow too heavy for one family to bear. In the small, neglected village of Paroom, life moved with the familiar rhythm of endurance. It was a place where people did not expect ease, only survival. Hospitals were distant, medical care was uncertain, and illness was something families faced not only with fear but with helplessness.
Nawab had been unwell for some time. His body, once strong enough to carry the ordinary burdens of life, had begun to weaken. His family watched him with growing concern, their hearts tightening each day as his health failed to improve. Love, when faced with suffering, searches desperately for solutions, even when none are guaranteed. And so, with hope fragile but alive, they decided to take him to Panjgur, to the area of Chitkan, where his uncle’s home was located. It was a place where treatment was at least possible, where recovery did not feel entirely out of reach.
It was not a journey made out of fear, but out of care. They believed they were saving him. They believed they were carrying him toward healing, toward a future where his illness would become only a memory. No one could have imagined that this act of love would instead deliver him into disappearance. No one could have known that the road to treatment would become the road where his life would quietly end.
If Nawab had known what fate had written for him in Panjgur, perhaps he would have chosen to remain in Paroom, even if illness consumed him slowly. There are pains the body can endure, but there are cruelties the soul cannot survive.
On the night of 29 May 2025, darkness covered the world with its usual calm. The house in Chitkan was resting. Inside its walls lived the fragile comfort of family presence, the kind of comfort that exists simply because loved ones are nearby. His mother slept with the quiet reassurance that her son was under her roof. His sister felt secure in her accustomed surroundings. Nawab himself, unaware of the approaching storm, existed on that final night of unbroken belonging.
Then the silence was shattered.
The sound came suddenly, violently. Heavy boots struck the main gate, not once, but repeatedly, with force that spoke not of urgency, but of dominance. It was not a knock. It was an invasion.
Before the family could fully awaken from sleep, armed men had entered their home. They did not arrive with an explanation. They did not carry questions. They carried only authority and force. The house that had moments ago been a place of safety became a place of terror.
Confusion spreads faster than understanding. Fear arrived before thought could form.
They seized Nawab. His family reacted not with defiance, but with instinct. His mother, driven by a love older and stronger than fear, stepped forward. Her voice trembled, but it did not break. She asked the only question a mother can ask in such a moment: What is his crime? Why are you taking him?
Her words carried innocence, not resistance. She was not challenging power; she was pleading for humanity. But humanity did not answer her.
Instead, gunfire pierced the night.
Bullets were fired into the air, not to kill, but to silence. The sound was deafening, final, and absolute. It was a message written in violence: do not come closer, do not ask again, do not resist what has already been decided.
Her cries rose into the darkness, filled with prayer, desperation, and the fragile hope that someone, somewhere, would intervene. She called out not only to the men before her, but to God, to justice, to mercy itself. But no mercy came. No explanation was given. No reason was offered. They took Nawab as if his life did not belong to him, as if his existence could be erased without consequence.
And then they left.
The house was still there, but its interior had changed. The morning arrived, but it brought no comfort. Dawn, which once symbolised renewal, now carried only the weight of absence. Nawab’s place was empty. His voice was gone. His presence, which had once filled the house with quiet life, had been replaced by silence so heavy it felt like suffocation.
His family entered a new existence, one defined not by living, but by waiting.
Waiting became their reality. Every passing hour stretched endlessly. Every rumour became both hope and fear. Every unknown body discovered somewhere became a possibility they were terrified to confirm. They searched for answers in places that offered none. They heard promises that carried no truth. They learned that uncertainty is a form of suffering that never rests.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months.
Time did not heal their pain. It only deepened it.
Hope became fragile, but it did not disappear. Because hope is the final haven for a damaged heart, even when it is illogical. They lived with the belief that he would return. That one day, he would walk through the same door from which he had been taken. That the nightmare would end, and life would resume its natural order.
However, destiny had written a different conclusion.
Nine months later, his body was discovered near the Washbood area, by the Rakshan River in Panjgur. The river flowed as it always had, indifferent to the grief it carried. It did not speak. It did not explain. It simply revealed what had been hidden.
In that moment, waiting ended.
But the end of waiting did not bring peace. It brought pain deeper than uncertainty. Because uncertainty allows hope to exist, but death destroys hope completely.
Nawab was no longer missing. He was gone.
His family was forced to face a reality they had spent months fearing but refusing to accept. The questions that had once filled their lives no longer mattered. They had been replaced by a silence that could never be broken.
His mother, who had cried out for answers that night, was now left with none. His father carried a grief too heavy to express. The natural order of life had been violated. Parents are meant to leave this world before their children. Yet here, reality had reversed itself, leaving them to bury the very life they had created.
What were his final thoughts? Did Nawab believe he would return home? Did he imagine freedom was near? Did he remember his mother’s voice, his family’s faces, the ordinary moments that now existed only in memory? Did he understand, in those final moments, that his tomorrow had been taken from him?
These questions will never find answers.
Life continues, as it always does. The sun still rises. The streets are still filled with movement. The world does not stop for individual grief. But inside one family, time has been permanently altered.
His absence remains, not as a moment, but as a permanent condition.
His mother lives with a wound that will never close. His father lives with a silence that cannot be filled. His family lives, but they no longer live in the same world.
This is not simply the story of Nawab’s death. It is the story of his absence. It is the story of a journey made for healing that ended in irreversible loss. It is the story of a night that stole not only a son, but also the peace, certainty, and innocence of those who loved him.
And though his life was taken, his memory remains, living in the silence of his home, in the grief of his family, and in the truth that some losses do not fade, no matter how much time passes.
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.