Awaz Wahid is the elder brother of Allah Dad Wahid.
The last time I held my brother, it was 2010. He was just a boy then. I had to leave our home, and for fifteen years, the miles between us were filled only with the sound of his voice over phone calls and the glow of messages on a screen. But distance did not dim the man he was becoming; if anything, it allowed me to see his greatness more clearly through the eyes of our family and our community.
Though I am the older brother, Dad was the man of our house. After our father passed away in 2017—and honestly, even before that—Dad took the weight of our family on his shoulders. He was the one in charge. Whether it was a neighbourhood wedding, a funeral, or a local crisis, Dad was the one managing it all. He was the gravity that held our world together while I was forced to live in exile.
He was more than my brother; he was my advisor. He was younger than me, yet in his wisdom and sincerity, he was decades ahead of his time. He didn’t just send me messages; he sent me books. He pushed me to read, to learn, and to grow, even as he was doing the same for an entire nation. I respected him more than anyone I have ever known.
I begged him to leave. I pleaded with him to move abroad, to seek education where it was safe, and to live with me. But Dad was unshakeable. He told me, “I don’t want to go anywhere. I will stay in Turbat and I will serve my people.” He knew the risks. We now know that his “pause” from his M.Phil studies wasn’t just about money—it was about his soul. He had been summoned by Military Intelligence and asked to work for them. He chose the dignity of a “No” over the safety of a “Yes”. He received the threat calls, he felt the shadows closing in, but he refused to be bought and he refused to be silenced.
There is no doubt in my mind who took him from us. The death squads and the forces that back them fear one thing above all: a Baloch who thinks for himself. They killed him because they couldn’t kill the ideas he was planting.
Dad believed that new ideas come from new literature. He founded Dodman Publications because he wanted our people to read the world’s greatest thoughts in our own beautiful Balochi language. He wanted us to have the tools to build our own future.
My brother is gone physically, and the void he leaves in our home is a silence that can never be filled. But his dream didn’t die that evening in Turbat. To his friends, his colleagues, and the youth of Balochistan: I ask you to make his work your own.
Rest in power, my brother. You were the greatest gift our family ever received.