Karim Bakhsh, a boy passionate about Balochi literature and poetry, and a resident of Gomazi (Tump), was brutally killed by local death squads in Kohaad, Tump last month. His helpless mother, consumed by grief, demands justice. Alongside her family, she blocked the CPEC road and staged a protest at Shaheed Fida Chowk for days, refusing to bury Karim’s body until accountability was assured.
Amidst tears, she repeatedly cried out: ‘He was just a driver! He left school to feed me and his younger siblings. And you took his life! May Allah curse you! You killed my innocent child! May Allah curse you…!’.
Her tone turned sorrowful, her voice barely above a whisper. She repeatedly asked, her words laced with anguish: “Why did you kill my little child? What wrong did he do to you?” The question echoes: when will the Baloch be treated with their lives valued? Why have the security institutions failed to track down the perpetrators?
The family had countless questions, but the silence was deafening. No one took ownership of their pleas, leaving them with a haunting refrain: ‘It is what it is, it was, and it will be…’ Yet, they continued to dare, to ask, to seek answers, refusing to accept the status quo. Until when? She was a mother and she was asking for a place where children die of natural causes not state sponsored violence.
Karim, just 17, was brutally shot dead, his body riddled with bullets. His life was not the only one extinguished that day; the lives of his family members, who eagerly awaited his return home, were forever shattered. His mother and siblings had looked forward to sharing laughter and stories with him that evening. But fate, manipulated by State-backed men, had other plans. The night that was meant for warmth and connection became a perpetual darkness, a painful reminder.
Mehraj Qadir, Karim Bakhsh’s cousin and close friend, shared a similarly tragic fate. A 9th-grade student, in the midst of his exams when his life was brutally cut short. The exam hall, now stood as a haunting reminder of what could never be. Mehraj’s chair, empty and forlorn, seemed to whisper his absence. His bag, packed with books and dreams, lay untouched, a poignant symbol of a future brutally put to an end. The unattended paper, blank and staring, echoed the cries of the examiner, ‘Who is Mehraj? Why his attendance unmarked?’ The question hung in the air, a stark contrast to the scribbling of pens and shuffling of papers.
Mehraj’s childhood friend stood still, frozen in hope. He, stationed by the school gate, waited patiently, scanning the horizon for a similar smile. The minutes ticked by, but the friends optimism remained, a beacon of innocence in a world that had just been shattered. Mehraj’s family had endured unimaginable suffering for far too long. Their homes had been reduced to ashes; their lives uprooted by forced displacement.
The trauma of those memories still lingered, a constant reminder of the brutality they had faced. But then, after years of struggle, they had finally found the strength to rebuild. Their new home stood as a testament to their resilience, a symbol of hope in the face of adversity. And yet, in a cruel twist of fate, it was within these walls that their young Mehraj’s life was brutally cut short. Therefore, character changes for this time but the question of Mehraj’s mother remain same…until when?
The Palestinian writer and journalist Ghassan Kanafani says, “I wish children did not die. I wish they would be temporarily elevated to the skies until the war ends. Then they would return home safe, and when their parents would ask them: “Where were you?” they would say: “we were playing in the clouds.”
Mehraj’s mother was wishing the same thing and it is always remained a wish for colonized since long. It’s not just two lives cut short, nor just two families torn apart. This is a chilling testament to a systematic genocide operation targeting the indigenous Baloch population. They question echoes: why are the Baloch people, in their own homeland, subjected to such brutal oppression? While others live free from such terror, the Baloch are forced to endure the insufferable. Their homeland, a battlefield; their future, uncertain.
