Asad Baloch, ten long years of Disappearance

Asad Baloch, a young political activist hailing from Tump Dazin, one of the most affected areas in terms of state atrocities and brutalities in Balochistan and the birthplace of revolutionaries like Lumma-E-Watan Karima, Khalid, and many others. Asad Baloch was in Quetta for his political activities when state forces, alongside their agencies, abducted him in broad daylight on March 18, 2014. Until today, his whereabouts remain unknown to the organization and his family. It has been a wait of ten years since his abduction, leaving his whereabouts and well-being as a question to the nation.

Asad was abducted on the same day when the chairman of Baloch Students Organization Azad was whisked away by security forces in front of many eyewitnesses in Quetta. His fate also remains unknown since March 18, 2014. He has been in illegal detention for the last ten years due to his national activism and the responsibilities he fulfilled after realizing the colonial occupation of Pakistan on Baloch Nation. Asad was a keen learner and a student of International Relations (IR) at the Federal University of Karachi after graduating from Buitems University of Balochistan in the Department of BBA. Before joining the ranks of the central committee of the organization, he actively participated in activities at the zonal level of the organization. Soon after, he was elected as the zonal cabinet member in Shall zone, where he engaged in full-time political activism during the harsh crackdown against political activists by state agencies.

Hundreds of members and leadership of BSO-Azad were targeted, assassinated, disappeared, brutally murdered, and their bullet-riddled bodies were found in different parts of Balochistan. Such actions were taken by security agencies to prevent Baloch youth and the nation from struggling against the illegal occupation of Baloch land, but state aggression strengthened the spirit of political activists like Asad Baloch to do more for the Baloch cause in order to get rid of Pakistani occupation. He was later elected as a central committee member after forming the organizing body of the organization in 2011.

Following this, the organization went for a council session, and Asad Baloch, as an active and talented political cadre of the organization, was elected as the junior joint secretary of the organization without opposition. Soon after being elected as the junior joint secretary of the organization, Asad Baloch actively participated in the political activities of the organization throughout Balochistan, joining peaceful rallies, demonstrations, large gatherings, and other activities at the organizational level.

Asad Baloch was one of the important leaders of the organization during the crisis of 2013 when a large amount of propaganda against the organization was initiated to disrupt its activities. Asad Baloch, along with other leadership of BSO-Azad, remained committed against all odds and obstacles on the ground. He was on his way to a formal meeting of the organization when state agencies abducted him for the “crime” of being a Baloch student and a political activist. Asad is in detention for ten years, and the silence of human rights organizations has encouraged the Pakistani state to keep him as prisoner for a lifetime without having committed any wrongdoing but merely practicing basic human rights.