The rain and the cold in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Balochistan, did not deter them. Neither did the floods that ravaged their homes. The families of Balochistan’s missing had been protesting for days outside the provincial government’s headquarters. On August 25, one of the protestors, Seema Baloch, the sister of Shabbir Baloch, a student leader who had been missing for weeks, fell unconscious and had to be taken to a nearby hospital. The others simply kept protesting.
Government officials gently asked them to leave, but when the protesters asked about the missing—all allegedly abducted by Pakistani security forces—the officials professed ignorance or, worse, helplessness.
Baloch activists claim that nearly a thousand people disappear every year, abducted by the Pakistani security forces. The security forces link nearly all of the missing to Balochistan’s independence movement. The call for independence is rapidly gathering momentum there.
It’s not a new call.
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