January 25, 2025
Staff Report
DALBANDIN
Thousands of participants converged in Dalbandin, on Saturday at the headquarters of Balochistan’s Chagai district, to participate in a national gathering, o commemorate the previously announced Baloch Genocide Comemoration Day. The event is organised annually by the Baloch Yakjheti Committee on January 25, and continued to take place on Saturday despite state crackdowns and a shutdown of mobile phone and internet services in the region.
According to local journalists from Dalbandin, cell phone and data services were shut down in the entire Chagai district from noon on Thursday, January 23. The gathering remembered the victims of mass graves which were discovered on January 25, 2014, from the Totak area of Khuzdar district. Participants from Barkhan, Khuzdar, Quetta and other areas of the province reached the venue a day earlier, braving the cold weather, according to details provided by BYC.
Due to the phone and internet blackout, delegations and participants coming to the venue faced problems in communicating with one another. The organisers also claimed that participants from Quetta and Noshki districts were stopped from reaching Dalbandin.
“Delegations from Quetta and Noshki districts were stopped and told to proceed to Dalbandin after Saturday, January 25,” said Gul Zadi Baloch, a member of the BYC, in Dalbandin. She said the organisers faced difficulties in coordinating the movement of participants due to a blackout of phone and internet in the region.
BYC said the authorities were employing various measures to obstruct the peaceful assembly.
“Multiple FIRs have been filed against BYC leadership, and internet services have been suspended across Dalbandin and the entire Rakhshan region,” the BYC claimed. The BYC also expressed concern that the authorities might launch a crackdown on the peaceful event.
Gul Zadi Baloch expressed hope that the gathering would be a success and that participants would brave all difficulties to pay homage to victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. “People in Dalbandin including children have been making victory signs to welcome delegates reaching from other parts of the province,” she said.
Participants in the national gathering asserted that they would continue to raise their voices against the genocide of the Baloch people and fight for their rights to own the resources of their land.
According to Mahrang Baloch, chairperson of the BYC, the authorities had suspended mobile phone service and landlines in Gwadar during their gathering earlier.