November 24, 2024
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
Mahpara Baloch was in ninth grade when her brother Naseebullah was abducted from their hometown Nushki. Ten years later today, on November 24, she is setting up a camp outside the Quetta Press Club. Her brother remains missing, but the family pushes on, hoping against hope that their voices reach the corridors of power.
Even at the age of 14, Mahpara knew the seriousness of the situation.
“In Balochistan disappearances are a grim reality,” she says. “Even children are aware of the dangers. They hear things, they know what is happening. So, I too was aware of the political situation.”
Naseebullah’s parents Sajida Bibi and Shaukat Ali were at home, waiting to receive their children as they came from their tuitions and college. Things were peaceful until they received a call from a relative informing them that Naseebullah had been kidnapped.
Mahpara recounts the intense distress she felt when she reached home.
“Suddenly there was chaos all around me….my mother fainted…my sisters started crying…I remember running out of the house into the streets, I remember the tears running down my face, shouting for my brother to come home,” she says. “I cannot describe in words what we went through that night.”
It was sunset when Naseebullah Badini was picked up.
The 19-year-old college student, would often go to his father’s shop, and lend him a hand. That fateful day he was shutting down shop ready for his prayers when a couple of vehicles – a Toyota pickup, and a white Vitz – zoomed into position nearby.
His younger brother, 11 year old Babil, who was an eyewitness told his family that a man asked for Naseebullah. When he identified himself, they grabbed him by his collar and dragged him into the street. They tied his hands and blindfolded him and took him away in their car.
He kept shouting ‘Why are you taking me? What have I done?’ but they never announced any charges.
Aminullah their elder brother had his tailor’s shop nearby. When he found out, he asked someone to take him there and they followed the vehicles only to see them entering the gate of Wing 110 of the FC camp in Nushki.
“Naseeb was taken in front of everyone in the market. Everyone saw who it was.”
Meanwhile Babil is still suffering from post-traumatic depression.
Taken, but why?
Naseebullah was a student at Nushki’s Degree College for Boys. His siblings say that he was in his second year and would love to immerse himself in books and extracurricular activities.
Having started training in Taekwondo since the age of five, he was a Red Belt and had won several distinction certificates for it, including a gold medal in 2011, in a championship in Faisalabad. In the evenings, he would go for computer classes and to learn English. When he was free, he would sit at his father’s shop as that was the main source of income for the family.
This is why it is difficult for Mahpara and Aminullah to even begin to understand why their brother was taken away by security forces.
“Various students take part in political activism,” says Mahpara. “But my brother had no political involvement. He was only interested in getting ahead in his studies and going further on from there. He was the reason we studied because he encouraged all other siblings to study as well. Most of the time he spent at home, he hardly even went out with friends.”
“Educated young men are soft targets in Balochistan, in the fear that they might become political,” says Amin. “My brother was reading all the time; he wanted to be someone. He had great plans. They are all shattered.”
For a family of eight siblings, Naseebullah was a kind of a glue that held them all together and once he disappeared, they all collapsed.
“Ever since he was abducted, his whereabouts still unknown, my mother has become extremely ill,” says Mahpara. “From the time this incident took place, she has been distracted and worried all the time. Once she forgot to turn off the stove and left the gas running; she burnt herself badly because of that.”
Sajida Bibi has also become a heart patient, and is suffering from hypertension, and diabetes, with stress as an underlying factor. She has also suffered two heart attacks. Only recently she stayed for eight days in the ICU in a hospital in Karachi. As for depression – the whole family suffers from it.
“We have stopped going to our schools and colleges, because we suffer from lack of concentration,” says Mahpara. “We ask ourselves every waking day – where is he…what state is he in?”
She refuses to imagine he is anything but alive.
“An unidentified body once arrived at the hospital. None of us had the strength to go and identify. Thankfully someone told us it was not him. It was the scariest moment of our lives.”
Active discouragement
Soon after his abduction and disappearance, certain people of the community came forward and actively discouraged the family to file a report.
“They carried messages from those who had taken my brother, and they were telling us to stay silent,” says Mahpara. “And we did. We didn’t say anything for five whole years, did not even file an FIR. But then, after this time we could not keep quiet.”
Fighting for his freedom
Aminullah who is a special needs person spent a month in Islamabad in the camp set up by Mahrang Baloch. Upon his return he looked so dejected that it broke Mahpara’s heart.
“We faced nothing but a baton charge,” he told his mother. “This is what law enforcement is for?”
The first thing they did was file a case with the government run Commission for the Inquiry of Enforced Disappearaces (CoIED), says Aminullah. The judge summoned representatives from intelligence agencies and security forces and asked them about the situation.
“One of them admitted to having my brother and promised that they would release him soon,” says Aminullah. “But this is what they have been saying since years now. The case continues to run. They keep informing us that Naseebullah is still under interrogation that he would be released soon, but we see nothing happening. We are just repeatedly asked basic questions – we have to tell the story again and again.”
Apart from visiting the CoIED commission hearings in Islamabad and in Quetta, Aminullah also attends the JIT processes in Nushki. It is a harrowing process attending all the hearings but never seeing anything change. “Seven long years have gone by just like this,” he says.
The red tape and opaque procedures don’t help.
“They don’t explain things to us properly; I told them put him in jail if he has done something wrong, but at least let us know what he has done. Let him have a fair and transparent trial, but in vain.”
Aminullah says that they also tried other avenues – approached local parliamentarians but they did not want to get involved. They have however submitted applications to the UN and HRCP.
A recent long march and camp set up by Baloch families brought the issue of missing persons in the limelight. Did the protest demonstration make a difference? One of the camp’s organizers, Bebarg Baloch spoke to Voicepk and said it is the only way forward.
“We have been protesting against the enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and human rights abuses in Balochistan for a long time,” he says. “Regarding the protest on November 24, by the family of Naseebullah Badini, I think it is a powerful symbol of resistance and resilience. These families have been searching for their loved ones for years, and their determination to seek truth and justice is admirable. As BYC, we will continue to support and amplify the voices of these families.”
Bebarg says that his organization the Baloch Yakjehti Committee is working on collecting numbers of those missing.
“At present I cannot give an accurate number of missing persons because we have registered some cases, but it is difficult to cover the whole of Balochistan especially its peripheries,” he says. “But the situation is such that only in October 123 people were forcibly disappeared and we have started registering missing person cases from 2022 and till now we have around 14,000 cases.”
By the government’s own admission, there have been 10,390 cases received upto September 2024. Out of these 15 persons were traced, and 14 were returned home. In total the government claims 25 cases were disposed of in October, while in the entire year upto Septemeber, 8,144 cases were disposed of.
Ten years of longing. Ten years of uncertainty. The family, camped outside the Quetta Press Club, refuse to give up hope. Their unwavering spirit, the only ray of light against the darkness of their ordeal.