December 20, 2025
By Xari Jalil
LAHORE
“When I look at the face of these missing persons, I forget about how tired I am, how unwell I am – everything – I just sit down and look at their pictures including my own son’s. Then I think the pain that is within me, it is also within all the other relatives of those who are missing today.” — Mama Qadeer
The father
When Jaleel Reki the Information Secretary of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) was abducted in 2009 from Quetta’s Saryab Road, his case became a focal point for a missing persons movement. Witnesses reported that he had been returning from Friday prayers when men in plain clothes, driving vehicles without license plates, took him into custody.
For three long years, Jaleel remained missing.
For three years, Mama Qadeer protected his grandson by telling him his father was “away on business.” He felt a sense of dread, but maintained hope, filing court cases and holding a hunger strike camp outside the Quetta Press Club demanding the recovery of his son.
When Jaleel Reki’s mutilated body was found, he not only made sure his grandson saw it, but he also told him, ‘who took his body and why’.
He used to describe his son as a “martyr” whose name was now “part of history.” From then on, Qadeer – affectionately called ‘Mama’ or uncle, transitioned from a grieving father to a leader.
The activist
“We are not seeking revenge. We want our children back—dead or alive,” he once said in an interview.
‘Mama’ Qadeer went on to form the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), an organization under whose banner he gathered all other similar voices of grief – all those families – hundreds of them, who had seen or heard their loved ones being ‘picked up’ by people in plainclothes, and had disappeared since then. These families had no closure – they did not know whether their loved ones were dead or alive. They did not even know in some cases why their sons, brothers, fathers or husbands had been taken away. But these disparate voices did not know any platform until Mama Qadeer’s organization was formed and a movement began.
Chairperson of VBMP, Nasrullah Baloch, says that the organization can only try to follow from where their leader left off, but it is a huge challenge.
شدید سردی اور بارش کے موسم میں جبری گمشدگیوں کے خلاف وی بی ایم پی کے جانب سے قائم پرامن احتجاجی کیمپ آج بروز ہفتہ کوئٹہ پریس کلب کے سامنے 6035ویں روز جاری !
ہم اعلان کرتے ہیں کا تنظیم کا احتجاجی کیمپ سردیوں میں کوئٹہ پریس کلب کے سامنے جاری رہے گا۔ pic.twitter.com/W89tlYiE87
— VBMP (@VBMP5) December 20, 2025
“Mama Qadeer was an active voice for the missing persons of Balochistan and their families,” says Nasrullah. “He spent the last 15 years struggling for the recovery of these missing persons. During his own life, he took out a historic long march from Quetta to Karachi first and then to Islamabad. From 2009 he sat in his protest camp every day. We, as an organization, vow to take his struggle forward, and uphold the sacrifices that he made. Following in his footsteps, we will continue the camp by VBMP, which even after over 6,000 days is still set up outside the Quetta Press Club. We will continue our struggle through legal and constitutional means to raise our voices to recover those who are missing.”
Mama Qadeer’s biggest milestone was not just the camp which still stands today, but also the long march that he held.
A powerful man
“The power of his voice, the resilience that he had can only be evident from the long march that he took out from Quetta to Karachi and then onto Islamabad,” says Zaffar Baloch, a Quetta based journalist. “We cannot find another leader like him ever again. I know that his organization is trying hard to continue, but we can see that ever since Mama Qadeer left following his ailments, the camp is open one day and closed the other – people would come to the camp only because he himself would be there. Who will become the voice of those who are missing now?”
Zaffar Baloch says leaders in Balochistan were all unanimously respectful towards Mama Qadeer.
“In 2013, when Dr Maalik was made Chief Minister, Mama Qadeer’s camp was one of the first places he visited,” said Zaffar. “This was also the time when there were peace talks being held and recovery of missing persons was being discussed.”
Lawyer Imran Baloch, who has also been fighting one of the cases slapped on the BYC activists currently behind bars reminds that it was not initially Mama Qadeer who was the activist, but his son.
“Mama Qadeer was just a bank employee, with a little political activism under the banner of the National Awami Party (NAP). It was his son Jaleel Reki who was more politically active, first part of the Jamhoori Watan Party and then as a founding member of the Baloch Republican Party. When Jaleel and another activist were found dumped together in Turbat, Mama’s activism did not stop there. He joined the other families, including those of Kabir Baloch, Mushtaq Baloch and Attaullah, of Ali Asghar Bangalzai, who were already holding hunger camps. Other families joined him, including Zakir Majeed’s sister Farzana Majeed, Sammi and Mehlab Deen, the daughters of Dr Deen Mohammad, and soon he formed the VBMP. The idea was to create one organized voice; collect data and demand free and fair trials, while eliminating enforced disappearances but keeping within the legal ambit while demanding.”
Imran says that Mama Qadeer would not only sit outside the press clubs – it was the Quetta Press Club in the summers, and Karachi press club in the winters – but also hold seminars and talks on special days (Int’l Human Rights Day etc), bringing together intellectuals. If there was ever a delegation – of journalists or human rights defenders in Balochistan, they would come straight to Mama Qadeer. The camp had become a kind of office of his. Relatives used to come here, record their cases, take part in the protests and sit in and then write reports on the information he gave them, and send it to the UN.
He would also guide people over legal issues, help them get a lawyer.
“Although he was designated a vice chairman, he was the end-all of the organization. He used to also hold seminars and rallies from time to time remind people of those who were abducted and missing,” says Imran. “He also visited the US, and spoke there too about the issue. His name was put on the fourth schedule list and had cases slapped on him but he never stopped.”
“I remember when my uncle Rashid Hussain was abducted and was missing, my grandmother went straight to Mama Qadeer, who immediately helped us out,” says Mahzeb Baloch, whose father went missing a day ago too from Hub. “He noted down the case details. He guided us about a lot of things because we did not know what to do. I also remember when he took out his long march and reached Hub Chowki, my mother and grandmother took me there too. I was very little in my mother’s lap. Whenever Mama fell ill, I used to go to Karachi to meet him at the hospital. He used to ask me, how is everyone, how are my comrades? He asked me about my family, about my studies, Because he used to care about everything and everyone. And whever there was any update about anyoe’s case, he would immediately inform the families. Through Mama we learnt how to talk about our rights.”
The relentless
Munizae Jahangir, co chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan who had also visited Mama Qadeer’s camp several times, in her capacity as a journalist says that Qadeer was struggling at a time and space where there was absolutely no atmosphere of such a struggle.
“When I last met him, his camp had been set ablaze by some miscreants,” she said. “He was also continually harassed from all corners, but he continued his struggle in an atmosphere full of fear, and in places where no one could speak. But there he would set up his camp and stay there. He was indeed a relentless activist.”
Jahangir said that he had received countless threats not just to himself but also to his family. “When he spoke of details of the abductions or the bodies being dumped, politicians used to seal their ears. But he carried on with his struggle nevertheless.”
Mama Qadeer fell ill since after Eid-ul-Fitr this year with a chest complaint which later turned out to be tuberculosis. He was admitted to various hospitals since then in Quetta and Karachi. He later contracted kidney and liver complications too finally breathing his last on December 20, 2025.
He leaves behind one other son, and five daughters as well as grandchildren.
The end
“Times change, and new people come in, to carry the movement forward,” says Imran Baloch. “But there are some people who are a totally different chapter, and it is these people on whom entire books are written.”