June 28, 2023
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, an organization based in the province claims that over 80,000 people have gone missing in Balochistan since 2001. Among them is also Dr Deen Muhammad Baloch, a physician and politician who has been missing for 14 years. Deen Muhammad belongs to Mashkay, Awaran, and at the time of his abduction, he was serving as a doctor at the government-run Ornach hospital in Khuzdar at the time of the abduction.
Among those who wait for his return endlessly is his young daughter Sammi Deen Baloch,
On June 28, 2009, at about 1 am, security personnel in plain clothes broke into the hospital where he was working. They beat, blind-folded, and hand-cuffed him and threw him into a military vehicle and took him away. Since then, nothing is known about his whereabouts.
The family also tried registering a case with the police in Khuzdar and filed a petition in the Balochistan High Court but all in vain. Despite several protests and marches during the year, not a trace of Dr Deen Muhammad has been revealed.
Dr Deen was also affiliated with the Baloch National Movement (BNM), a pro-independence party in Balochistan. Several leaders and activists of the party have been abducted over the years with many extra-judicially killed by the country’s security forces, including its founder and chairman, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, secretary general, Dr Mannan Baloch, and information secretary, Razak Sarbazi.
Right after her father’s abduction Sammi Deen, following in her father’s footsteps, left the security of her home to raise her voice for the release of her father and hundreds of other Baloch missing persons. To make her situation slightly safer than in Balochistan, the family moved to Karachi, although the family faced threats there too as they campaigned for the release of Dr Deen Muhammad and other missing persons.
Meeting With PM
In December 2020, Sammi Baloch took part in a protest camp in Islamabad organized by Voice for Baloch Missing Persons. After days of demonstrations, the protestors were informed by the Federal Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari that Prime Minister Imran Khan would meet them only if they ended their protest camp immediately.
The Baloch families complied. Twenty days after this, the families were finally called to Islamabad for a meeting with the PM.
In an older interview with Voicepk.net Sammi says that she had ‘begged the PM to look into the case of her father and for his return.
“The PM assured us that he would do everything in his power to ensure the safe return of all our families. We were overjoyed. However only Haseeba Qambrani has seen the return of her brothers, the rest are still waiting,” she said.
