April 10, 2024
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
The thin sliver of the Eid crescent glows through the darkening sky, and Rubina Baloch’s lips move as she murmurs a silent prayer. Like so many other mothers, Rubina too travelled for miles in the long march to Islamabad, to plead with authorities to return her son. But a part of her is scared that Salman may never return.
Twenty-one-year-old Salman Baloch disappeared without a trace on November 13, 2022, on the way to Quetta from his home town Khuzdar.
His sister Sadia Baloch reminisces that time.
“My brother was working as a peon in the government run Engineering University but recently he had found another job,” she says. “But for that he needed his degree documents – he was an FSc graduate – that he needed for the job interview. He was going to Quetta to the board office to get copies of his original documents but he never even reached.”
While Rubina joined the long march led by Mahrang Baloch, most of the time it has been Sadia has been at the forefront fighting for her brother. But for a year after Salman disappeared, the family kept silent about it in fear that their other boys might be ‘disappear’ as well.
Sadia Baloch, sister of Salman Baloch, a resident of Khuzdar
“Eid belongs to those whose hearts are happy, Eid belongs to those whose brothers and fathers are safe. This is our third Eid that we are spending without a brother, and a son. We have come to know after this time what the separation of a brother means. My brother Salman Baloch was forcibly disappeared from Quetta on 13 November 2022 and he is still is missing. On behalf of the Baloch Solidarity Committee, rally will be taken out from Shaheed Abdul Razzaq Chowk in Khuzdar at three o’clock on Eid day. Baloch Voice for Justice will also conduct an online campaign in the evening. I request all those people who have some consciousness to attend the rally and participate in the online campaign.”
Silent for a Year
“Actually after he went missing, we did not even file a police report,” said Sadia. “But through some links we tried to find out and we realized that Salman had been the victim of an enforced disappearance, possibly at the hands of FC Corps.”
She says her other brother almost faced a similar fate.
“Before Salman went missing, FC forces had picked up my other brother Rehan from a barber shop in broad daylight,” says Sadia. “They detained him from eight pm to midnight, without really giving a reason, and kept interrogating him as if he was a terrorist. He denied any links with any militant organization. Then at the end of it all they dropped him off at some deserted place. Rehan was only a class seven student at the time.”
13 نومبر 2022 کو شال کوئٹہ سے جبری گمشدگی کا نشانہ بنایا گیا، اس خبر سے ان کے گھر میں ایک ایسا سانحہ رونما ہوا جس نے اس خاندان کی بنیادیں ہلا کر رکھ دیں۔ کیونکہ خاندان کے امنگیں اور خواب نوجوان سلمان سے وابستہ تھیں۔#ReleaseSalmanBaloch
https://t.co/x4pcqrJdjK
— Latif Baloch (@BalochLatif) March 28, 2024
Sadia says there had been fake encounters happening at that time in Khuzdar. “We kept hoping that like Rehan they would release Salman as well, but that never happened.”
They ended up joining the Mama Qadeer camp outside the Quetta Press Club for a few days.
That must have been an eye-opening experience, because Mama Qadeer who has been speaking out against enforced disappearances since years now, told the family to immediately register the case with the government’s commission. For that a first information report had to first be filed, which was then forwarded to the Commission.
Sadia Baloch @Sadia_Balochh sister of Salman Baloch who forcibly disappeared on 13 Nov 2022 . Families standing together, hearts beating as one. On 27 March 2024, let us unite in our quest for truth, justice, and accountability.
#EndEnforcedDisappearances pic.twitter.com/OQvTxs6prO
— Baloch Voice For Justice (@BalochV4Justice) March 23, 2024
The first time the Joint Investigation Committee (JIT) summoned the family was on February 29, 2023. Sadia Baloch has been keeping record in a diary.
“In the first meeting there was not much development. They just asked me about Salman, and I told them. But I found out that my uncle and cousin had been picked up before and interrogated had told the FC officials that Salman had been involved with BLA,” says Sadia. “There was a case against them as well in the high court but it was thrown out due to lack of evidence. They were forced into saying this on video.”
The second date was on March 7, and when she went there, Sadia saw that representative from the intelligence agencies were also present, including from the MI and ISI.
“They kept saying that we know your brother is involved, so just tell us,” she says. “When I kept denying they said, call your father we want him to tell us this. But I refused to get my father. I told them my father is a heart patient, I cannot subject him to so much stress, but they wouldn’t stop asking me to call him.”
Once before her father was called to a location in Cantt, but the way he was questioned and spoken to, it was extremely overwhelming for him, she said. “My father is a retired man, frail and old. He cannot handle this kind of stress.”
Sadia also says they denied that they had Salman in their custody.
As they had now begun taking part in more and more protests, gripping Salman’s pictures and posters, Mama Qadeer convinced them to join Mahrang Baloch’s long march and so Rubina Baloch went for her son, along with several other mothers who had been pining for theirs.
“We all know what happened there,” says Sadia.
Rubina went alone, without knowing anyone else. She befriended women who were with her, and as they made their way there would have been a spark of hope somewhere. But the woman who came back to her house in Khuzdar was a dejected one.
“Over time Ammi has become a depressive – she cannot sleep at night and suffers from anxiety issues,” says Sadia. “She gets frequent headaches and nausea. Yes, she is getting treatment for depression, and cannot sleep till she takes tablets at night. But can medicines cure the real pain?”
They have not celebrated Eid in two years now, like so many others out there. On Eid day, their uncles and cousins, their neighbors do visit. But without Salman no Eid is like before.
“We cannot even begin to tell the kind of vacuum we feel inside due to his absence,” she says. “We cant describe the extent of our pain.”