The family of Asif Baloch, a young man from Balochistan’s Khuzdar district, has threatened to block the national highway if he is not recovered or produced before a court within 24 hours, alleging that he and three others were taken into custody from Quetta and forcibly disappeared.
Addressing a press conference in Khuzdar, Asif Baloch’s sister, Sarah Baloch, said her brother was taken into custody on July 13, 2026, and that five days had passed without any information about his whereabouts.
She said Asif had graduated from the University of Peshawar a year earlier and had come to Quetta two weeks earlier to prepare for a test, where he was staying with friends.
According to Sarah Baloch, masked men and police personnel raided their residential room at around 5 a.m. without a warrant and took Asif and his friends to an unknown location.
She said her elder brother later reached the location, where a watchman told him that vehicles without number plates had repeatedly patrolled the area before the raid. On the day of the raid, she said, police personnel and masked men travelling in four vehicles entered the building, identified themselves as security personnel and took four people away.
Sarah Baloch said police had not registered an FIR for two days despite the watchman’s testimony.
She said Asif Baloch’s mother, sisters and entire family were suffering severe mental anguish after his disappearance.
“Enforced disappearance is a grave crime against humanity. If there are any allegations against Asif Baloch, he should be presented before a court in accordance with the constitution and the law,” Sarah Baloch said.
She also called on the Balochistan government and Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti to act on his announcement that there would be no enforced disappearances by the state after February 1, 2026.
At the end of the press conference, the family demanded that Asif Baloch and all those taken into custody with him be produced immediately.
They said that if Asif Baloch is not recovered or presented before a court within 24 hours, they will block the national highway in protest.
The Baloch Students Council (BSC) Islamabad also condemned the alleged enforced disappearance of Asif Baloch and three others, identified as Salman, Nabeel and Zubair, and demanded their immediate release.
In a statement, the council said Asif Baloch, son of Muhammad and a resident of Khuzdar, was a graduate of the University of Peshawar and had previously served as general secretary and chairman of the Baloch Students Council Peshawar.
It said Salman, son of Anwar and a resident of Panjgur, had graduated from Agriculture University Peshawar, while Zubair and Nabeel had completed their graduation from Khuzdar.
The council said the alleged disappearance of Baloch students was not an isolated incident but part of a wider pattern affecting Baloch youth.
“For us, it is a question of our lives and national survival,” the BSC Islamabad said, calling on student organisations, lawyers, journalists and civil society to raise their voices against enforced disappearances.
The council demanded the immediate release of Asif Baloch, his companions and all other forcibly disappeared persons, warning that it would use all legal means to launch a campaign against what it described as oppression and brutality.