Among Baloch people in Pakistan, a new ritual has taken root, one born not of culture but of state violence. When a victim of enforced disappearance returns, the celebration mirrors a wedding. Crowds gather, money is thrown, arms wrap around trembling bodies and chai circulates in endless rounds.

The laughter, food, garlands, fresh henna on the hands of the released and their loved ones are attempts to reclaim a life that was nearly taken. The victim may still be dazed, suspended between shock and survival, but the spectacle of relief continues around them.

Over the years, this ritual has evolved into a language. At protests or in chance encounters, when you offer prayers for someone still missing, the family responds almost instinctively: "Inshallah, when he returns, we will host a feast, you must come."

But what happened at Shareef Zehri’s house ruptured even this fragile script. The scene was the same: the smell of henna cooling on palms, garlands drying on the floor, chai still steaming, neighbours and relatives gathered to congratulate the family on the return of Shareef's son Shazaib. The very same people, at the very same hour, found themselves attending his funeral. A return after release collapsed into a burial, within the span of a single day.

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Twenty-four-year-old Shazaib Zehri lived in Killi Qambrani, Quetta. He could study only up to class six, as the family couldn’t afford more schooling for him. Shazaib, who had four brothers and one sister, soon began helping his father, Shareef, a local bus driver. A year ago, he started working as a security guard at the house of a Pashtun man in the city. He had been doing that job for a year when he was subjected to enforced disappearance on June 9, 2025, the third day of Eid ul Azha.

On the morning of Eid, Shazaib, along with two friends, Mukhtiar Lehri (son of Rahim Dad Lehri) and Mujeeb-ul-Rehman Lehri (son of Habeeb Khan Lehri) left on a motorcycle for a picnic towards Kalat, a journey of about three hours from Quetta.

Shazaib’s father says he called Shazaib on the third day of Eid, asking why it was taking the friends so long to return. Shazaib told him they had reached Manguchar Bazaar, an about two-hour journey from Quetta. Their motorcycle tyre had punctured, he said, and they were getting it repaired before heading back. After that call, all attempts to contact him were met with a switched-off response on his phone.

Then Mukhtiar’s brother, who is also the Zehris’ neighbour, called Shazaib’s brother, informing him that all three had been picked up by the Frontier Corps and made to disappear.

For ten days, their whereabouts remained unknown. On the 11th day, around 9 pm, Mukhtiar’s brother received a call from an unknown number. On the other end was Mukhtiar. He told him that he and Shazaib had been released near Kadkucha, Mastung, a drive of about an hour and a half from Quetta.

Mukhtiar and Shazaib managed, with the help of a local man, to reach a clinic in Mastung. The compounder gave them drips and injections. They were barely able to stand after the torture: their bodies needed immediate medical attention. Their families rushed to Mastung and brought them home.

Shazaib’s sister said he arrived back home around 3am.

His friend Mukhtiar was admitted to a hospital in Quetta for nearly three months before he was discharged, once his condition stabilised. The third friend with them, Mujeeb, was released months later, in October.

Shareef recalls the moments after Shazaib arrived home. His body was covered in bruises from head to toe – every kind of injury possible could be seen on his skin. He couldn’t lie on his back. He could only sit, with his knees bent. The family sat around Shazaib. They didn’t ask him any questions, thinking they would talk once he had recovered. “He was so anxious, so tortured, that even forming words was difficult,” Shareef recalled.

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Throughout the night, Shazaib’s mother, father, sister and brothers stayed beside him. He did not sleep, but only drifted in and out of consciousness. And the family stayed awake with him. All he could manage was to ask whether everyone at home was okay.

Shazaib’s sister said, “When I went to the kitchen to make tea, he would ask where I had gone, tell the others to call me. None of us left him alone.”

As Shazaib sat in silence, the family did too, unsure whether to feel relieved that he had returned, or to lament the condition in which he had returned.

Shareef described the torture his son had endured. Nobody in the family, he said, could make eye contact with him because of the condition he was in. Pausing between sobs, he said, “My son … my son … his skin was burned. There were marks from plastic bottles [that had been] melted onto his back. He couldn’t lie flat because of it.”

There were large burn marks all over his body. That same night he arrived, the family took him to a nearby clinic, where he was given more drips and injections before being sent home again.

His father said Shazaib’s fingernails had been removed. Later, he learned from Mukhtiar that both of them had been forced to drink boiling water, and that they had been given no food at all for ten days. They were starved.

By the next morning, around 9 am, Shazaib’s condition deteriorated and the family took him to the civil hospital in Quetta, where he was admitted.

Meanwhile, guests kept arriving at their home.

Shazaib’s sister said, “Everyone came with garlands and expressions of happiness to meet him. We told them he would be back soon. People waited at our house.” But after a few hours, Shareef and a few others returned from the hospital, bringing Shazaib home as a body. The celebration, the people, everything, just – stopped.

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That day in the hospital, around 2 pm, Shazaib had vomited once and succumbed to his torture injuries.

Referring to the Frontier Corps, Shazaib’s father used a derogatory term and said that they could have killed his son with a bullet. “At least he would not have been this traumatised before dying,” he said.

No part of his son was spared, Shareef said. Shazaib’s entire body was yellow with marks and bruises. His arms, his feet “were so broken it felt like they had fallen into pieces, perhaps after being beaten with sticks,” he said.

“We don’t even know what happened to him, what he endured, how he starved,” he said. “Only Allah knows – and they [the Frontier Corps] know.” He kept repeating this, wiping his tears with the corner of his chador.

Shareef said that he learned from Mukhtiar that the three of them were on foot, pushing their motorcycle with its flat tyre along the road, when the Frontier Corps stopped them. They were taken to a newly established military camp in Manguchar – actually a college newly converted into a camp.

Shazaib had set a photograph of himself, holding his duty weapon as a security guard, as the wallpaper on his phone. “Perhaps that was the reason,” his father said, wondering why his son had to endure what he did, adding, “Those [derogatory term for the Frontier Corps] called the place where Shazaib worked, asking if he was employed there as a gatekeeper and guard. The sahib confirmed it, saying that before leaving, Shazaib had told him he was going for a picnic – the only leave he ever took.”

“And because of that, they released him,” Shareef said, “but it was too late. Shazaib had already been tortured.” Shazaib would do his duty and come back home. “Always silent, never rude, always joking and sharing things with his mother.”

After Shazaib’s tragic death, his mother barely speaks.

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When Shazaib was subjected to enforced disappearance, his mother immediately began wazeefa – reciting Quranic prayers in the hope that her son would be protected or returned safely.

“But something dark had settled over my eyes, dimming my sight,” his father said. The house had filled with cries and tears, shock at how suddenly everything had changed. And on the day he was released, Shareef thought that the darkness clouding his vision would lift. “I thought I would see my light again,” he said.

“But the day I saw my son’s broken body … from his disappearance to his martyrdom and now … that light has gone. My eyes betray me now. They are dark, forever. My light is gone.”

“If Shazaib had been a sarmachar who was killed, we would still have been relieved in some way,” his father said, using the Balochi word for a pro-independence or resistance fighter. “But he was a security gatekeeper at a sahib’s house. The little money he brought home was to help us. And then his torture – all because of suspicion. A suspicion that later proved wrong. And that suspicion killed my son.”

“This… this is what breaks us,” he said, “losing a son for nothing he ever did.”

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