PARIS, FRANCE: Baloch National Movement (BNM) Chairman Dr Naseem Baloch has expressed deep concern and grief on the 10th anniversary of the enforced disappearance of Shabbir Baloch, the former central information secretary of the Baloch Students Organization Azad (BSO Azad).
In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Dr Naseem Baloch said Shabbir Baloch was picked up on October 4, 2016, from the Gorkop area of Balochistan’s Kech district and has not been traced since. He said Pakistani security forces detained him during a raid in the presence of his wife. Others detained that day were later released, he said, but Shabbir Baloch was never produced.
He said police initially refused to register an FIR, after which the family approached the courts and the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances. Amnesty International and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances were also informed of the case, he said, but there has been no trace of him despite these efforts.
Referring to the family’s long struggle, the BNM chairman said that for the past decade Shabbir Baloch’s sister, Seema Baloch, and wife, Zarina Baloch, have been protesting in cities including Turbat, Quetta, Karachi and Islamabad. He said they are demanding only that Shabbir Baloch be produced in court or that information be provided on whether he is alive. His wife has said publicly that she does not know whether to call herself a wife or a widow, he said.
Dr Naseem Baloch concluded that Shabbir Baloch’s case is clear evidence of the thousands of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. He said the 10 years are not merely a number or a statistic but the story of a family’s pain and waiting for an answer that has never come.
