It was the evening of December 6, 2024. Darkness, as always, blanketed Gilli Buleda. The southern Balochistan village gets power for one or two hours a day, if at all. The only sounds breaking the cold silence were the distant barking of dogs and the faint movements of Aisha.
A woman in her late seventies, her hair white and her face deeply wrinkled, Aisha clutched a wooden stick in one hand for support and carried a plate of daal and naan in the other. Taking small, careful steps, she made her way towards the room of her 29-year-old nephew Naveed. It was 7.30 pm. Naveed had just returned home and asked for something to eat. As she placed the plate before him, she asked, “Any news about Uzair?”
Naveed, in the front showing a victory symbol, sitting at a missing persons camp. Photo: By arrangement
“Let me finish eating first, Amma. I’m starving. I’ll tell you everything,” Naveed replied. He had just torn a piece of naan and dipped it into the daal when his phone rang. “Okay… Are you sure?” he asked in Balochi, his tone shifting.
Recalling that evening almost three months later, Aisha said she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation but noticed how quickly Naveed sat up.
“It’s only been ten minutes since you got home, and now you’re leaving?” Shoaib, his younger cousin, asked. “You haven’t even told us about your meeting with the colonel.”
“I’ll be back in half an hour. I’ll tell you everything then,” Naveed replied.
“But you haven’t finished your food. You said you were starving,” Aisha reminded him.
“I’ll eat when I’m back,” he said hurriedly, grabbing his keys and rushing out to his car.
Aisha sighed, put the food aside, and left his room. Shoaib, too, soon drifted off to sleep.
Car in the night
Between 8.30 and 9 pm, a gunshot-like sound broke the silence in nearby Jentari Kaor. Most residents sleep early, especially in winter. But the few in the neighbourhood who were still awake stepped outside to investigate. In the dim light, they spotted a white car with its headlights and indicator on.
Buleda is a poor, remote tehsil in Kech district, surrounded by mountains on all sides. To the west, the mountains touch the border with Iran. It is not often that a car is seen here at night, and when it is, people assume it belongs to someone powerful or perhaps a thief. Approaching such a vehicle could be risky, so most avoid it. That night, too, the onlookers hesitated. Some assumed the car had got a flat tyre, causing the noise, and chose to return to their homes.
At 6 am, a tractor driver was preparing to start his vehicle when from a distance he noticed the white car from the night before, still at the same spot. A sense of unease crept in. “This car has been here too long,” he thought. “Either it broke down, or something terrible has happened.”
As he moved closer, the tractor driver saw a man inside, his head slumped forward. When he reached the car, he realized the man was covered in blood. It was Naveed. By six-thirty, Aisha’s family was jolted awake by the devastating news – Naveed had been murdered.
Naveed carried a wallet containing his CNIC (identification card) and money, along with his mobile phone, in his pocket. When his body was found, the wallet was there but it was empty. His CNIC, mobile phone, and money were missing. He had been shot twice, both bullets piercing his head. The car was just one kilometre away from the military camp.
A meeting with the colonel
In Buleda, when someone is forcibly disappeared, their families often go to Newano Bit Camp to enquire about them. Naveed, who owned a farm, was familiar with the presence of Frontier Corps (FC) personnel from the camp because they regularly patrolled the area. He was at his farm one day when an FC subedar, whom he had encountered several times during patrols, approached. Naveed asked him if his cousin Uzair was in their custody. The subedar confirmed that Uzair was being investigated and said he would be released in two or three days. Grateful for the information, Naveed thanked him and asked for his contact number. The subedar, fluent in Balochi, shared his number.
Naveed, who owned this farm, was familiar with the presence of Frontier Corps (FC) personnel because they regularly patrolled the area. Photo: By arrangement
According to Naveed’s family, he later called the subedar who put him in touch with the Buleda colonel. The colonel assured Naveed that Uzair would be released soon. As days passed, the people of Gilli gathered and decided to go to Newano Camp to demand answers. There, they were told that the colonel’s mother had passed away and that he was away. They were assured that once he returned, Uzair would be released. They went back home and waited.
On December 6, Naveed was summoned by the Buleda colonel to the camp to speak about Uzair. He went there around 3 pm, accompanied by a local resident named Shakeel. He returned home around 7.30 pm but had barely sat for 10 minutes when he received the phone call. Without finishing his meal, he left again.
A forced march
Aisha, Uzair’s mother, has a home at Potani in Zamuran, an area even more deprived and isolated than Gilli. Her husband Umedh mostly lives there, tending their goats. Aisha lives with her sons, who are farmers, at Gilli in the same compound as her brother Hameed, Naveed’s father. Since Naveed’s mother passed away years ago, Aisha has also looked after her brother’s household.
Potani, enclosed by mountains, is so remote that it is a struggle to reach it even on a bike. Basic necessities are scarce, so Uzair would often travel there to deliver food and supplies to his father. On one such visit, Uzair was sitting with Umedh outside their hut when a group of Frontier Corps personnel arrived. They greeted the father and son and then turned to their relative, Abdul Rahman, who was also sitting nearby.
The FC personnel asked Uzair and Abdul Rahman to accompany them. For two days and nights, Uzair and Abdul Rahman walked with the soldiers. According to Uzair’s family, the FC personnel had maps and sketches of various mountainous areas, some of which Uzair recognized, while others were unfamiliar. They repeatedly pressured Uzair to point out locations where Baloch pro-independence fighters might be hiding, but he had no answers for them.
Meanwhile, Umedh carried on with his daily routine, tending to his herd. Then, from a distance, he saw the FC personnel returning. His heart lifted – his son was alive, and was coming home. Overwhelmed with relief, he fell into Sajda, thanking God. As he hurried forward to meet them, one of the FC men stopped him.
“Our other team has cooked biryani nearby,” one of them said. “Uzair will eat with us, and then we’ll send him back.”
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“No, I have food,” Umedh pleaded. “Please, let him stay with me. I’ve longed to see him.”
One of the FC men, who knew a little Balochi, laughed and said, “Baba, it’s only been two days, and you’re already restless?” Then he turned to Uzair. “Let’s go.”
Uzair didn’t say a word. His father kept pleading, but Uzair and his relative were led away. As soon as they were out of sight of the small population of Potani, the soldiers blindfolded them and took them towards the Buleda camp.
On November 18, 2024, Uzair and Abdul Rahman were forcibly disappeared. On December 10, three days after Naveed’s killing, they were released.
Wishing for death
“You people see insurgents and don’t inform us. You give them rations,” an FC officer said to Uzair while he was in custody.
“But we were with you for two days – did we see any Sarmachar?” Uzair replied. Sarmachar is the Balochi word for pro-independence fighters.
A hard slap struck his face. His eyes were blindfolded, his hands tightly cuffed behind his back. The force of the slap made his nose bleed. He couldn’t tell if it was blood or sweat dripping down, but someone scoffed: “Clean his bloody nose. So fragile – one slap, and he’s already bleeding.” But no one cleaned it.
“Call your Sarmachar. He’ll come to help you,” another voice mocked.
For the first seven days, they didn’t let him sleep. The guards changed shifts, but Uzair remained awake. If his head drooped from exhaustion, a stick would crack against his skull. If he tried to stay completely still, hoping to avoid their blows, they would yank his hair. “You alive? Why aren’t you moving?” His hands were still cuffed behind his back, his knees bruised from kneeling for hours.
“One must kill themselves before getting arrested by them,” Uzair said. “If I had anything sharp, I would have killed myself.” One day, they smashed his head against a wall. Blood poured down his face. For a brief moment, he felt relief. “Finally, I will die.”
But death didn’t come.
Instead, someone ordered him to be taken to a doctor. Though he barely understood Urdu, he caught the order. He screamed in Balochi, “Doctor naa – let me die!” They laughed. They beat him again, and dragged him to a doctor who bandaged his wounds. Then they forced him back into the darkness.
Uzair and Abdul Rahman were held in separate cells. They never saw each other, but the interrogators made sure their agony intertwined. “Uzair has already told us everything. He said you planted the bomb on the FC vehicle,” they told Abdul Rahman. And to Uzair, they said: “Abdul Rahman confessed. He said you did it.”
But neither of them had planted any bomb. They knew it. And so, they endured.
“Just admit it. Say you did it, and this will end.” When Uzair refused, a kick to the ribs would follow. Or a baton strike to his legs. Or a fist slamming into his already swollen face. Abdul Rahman suffered the same. Some nights, they could hear faint screams through the walls, each uncertain whether they came from the other or another prisoner.
According to Uzair, while he was in custody, the FC men also questioned him about his cousin Naveed – what he did and where he lived. “I told them he does farming and lives with us all the time,” Uzair said.
Aisha: Witness to disappearances
Aisha cannot recall a single time when an attack on the forces in the area didn’t lead to soldiers storming into her home in Gilli the very next day or night. She has five sons, and all of them have been forcibly disappeared at least once – some more than once. They would be taken away, tortured and then released, only for the cycle to repeat.
“I believe that in Gilli Buleda, every child above the age of ten has been forcibly disappeared at least once, taken into FC custody, or made to stand before them in the camp. None has been spared,” she said.
Her brother Hameed had been taken into FC custody twice for no reason, Aisha said. “They would come and say, ‘Let’s go, we have some investigations to follow.’ Thank God, he was released,” she said.
Uzair now screams whenever he sees a new car, a sudden light, or a stranger. When he returned, his entire body was red and bruised, covered in sores, his knees torn. He couldn’t sit properly and would scream if anyone other than family members visited.
“What have they done to my beloved son… But we can’t complain, since they released him. Many don’t even get that chance,” Aisha said.
Aisha remembers how her two other sons and nephew were forcibly taken in August 2024. It was the 12th of the month when the FC arrived. Her son Nazeer was working in the fields when they dragged him out and marched him home. There, they seized her third son Haneef and nephew Waleed, Naveed’s brother.
Durratoon, Naveed’s 17-year-old sister, ran behind the FC vehicle, screaming for them to let her brother and cousins go. One of the soldiers smirked, holding a bomb in his hand. “Chup ho jao. Be silent, or I’ll throw this into your mouth.” But she refused to back down. “Chupp nba!” she shouted in Balochi, “I will not be silent.” She picked up stones and hurled them at the moving vehicle. Dust rose, stinging her eyes, as the FC sped away.
The FC personnel had noticed a Zamyad vehicle parked nearby. “Who does this belong to?” they asked. The family informed them it was Naveed’s. Naveed was out searching for a goat that had gone missing from their herd. But his uncle, Meeran, a man struggling with drug addiction, and his 15-year-old son, Rahim Jan, were taken.
Aisha recalls that Rahim Jan’s sister, Mahnaz, cried out in terror, demanding to know why they were taking her brother. An FC officer turned towards her. “Bring that girl to me.” Overcome with fear, she ran inside the house where she collapsed, unconscious. The FC did not follow her.
By sunset, Meeran and Rahim Jan were released. But not Nazeer, Haneef, and Waleed. What followed was 16 days of torment. Nazeer, Haneef and Waleed were accused of planting a bomb in Buleda. The soldiers blindfolded them, dragged them into separate cells, and deprived them of sleep. Each was told that the other had confessed. When they were released, their bodies bore the bruises of relentless beatings, their skin swollen from the force of sticks and boots.
Life in Gilli
Aisha spoke of the daily struggles of life in a region that lacks roads, hospitals, schools, electricity, and employment opportunities.
“Sometimes, a goat enters our field, eats our crops, or disturbs the planting process. A simple illness can kill us because there is no hospital. Drugs are ruining our people. We struggle for a road, one that can take pregnant women to Turbat city in time, so they don’t die on the way. Losing many women for lack of roads is a tragedy we have come to accept. These everyday hardships slowly destroy us, but we endure them,” she said.
“But when the forces enter our homes, drag our sons in front of us, and torture them – forcing them to confess to planting bombs, no matter what – how can we accept this inhumanity? They take our sons right in front of us. We cry, we beg, but they don’t listen. And later, they say, ‘We didn’t take them.’ How can they deny it when we are eyewitnesses?”
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Aisha recalled that when Uzair was taken away, Naveed had assured her he was in contact with the Buleda colonel and that, if nothing worked, they would block the road. “Now, seeing Uzair, I feel even more grief. Naveed was restless for him, doing everything he could, and yet Uzair was released only after his murder,” she said.
Nights of Watching, Worrying
Another resident of Gilli Buleda, Hatoon, said she has two teenage sons, and every night, she wakes up to check their rooms – to see if they are there or if they have been taken. “We live in constant fear that today or tomorrow, they might disappear. We cannot sleep without keeping our solar light on, fearing that the forces may come in the dark. In the summer, as there is no electricity in Buleda, we sleep outside our rooms, but there is no privacy for women. The FC can patrol around us at any time.”
‘Successful operation’
On the morning of December 7, Naveed’s family found his body in his car, pooled with blood. Meanwhile, a Facebook page claiming to be an ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) fan page, with 385,000 followers, posted a graphic. On one side was Naveed’s picture; on the other, an image of the armed forces. The caption in Urdu read: “Security forces’ successful operation – terrorist commander Naveed has been sent to his fate.”
There was no official statement.
Between crops and camps
Naveed’s father spoke quietly. “You (FC) have multiple chowkis on the mountains, camps equipped with cameras – Naveed was right here in front of you. He was not involved in anything that justified his killing.”
Farming and border trade are the only means of survival in Buleda, he said, yet both were controlled. “When we cultivate our land, the soldiers come immediately, questioning the noise of our tractors. Sometimes they order us to stop, at other times they allow it. On our own land, we need their permission – to farm, to harvest, to exist.”
Hameed’s voice was weary but firm. “We suffer every day – no electricity, no hospitals, and above all, endless military operations, disappearances, killings. But where would we go? Buleda is our home, our land. When I plant rice here and we eat it, we do so with pride, knowing it came from our soil. We would farm more, live off our own land, and not rely on the borders. But they won’t even allow that.
“Even in the dead of night, they patrol, conduct search operations without reason, scatter our belongings, and leave. It’s freezing in winter, yet we have no heaters, no electricity. In summer, the heat is unbearable without fans. There’s no network, no internet, no hospitals – just isolation and fear.
“If there’s an attack on forces in Buleda, the next day they retaliate against the locals. They summon us to the camp, call us in through death squads (local militias backed by the FC), and if we refuse, they shut down our border token. They force us into labour – if someone is passing by the camp, they make them carry cement or blocks for their construction. If a Zamyad driver arrives with oil, they demand he offload it, then force him to transport FC rations up the mountains to their chowkis before allowing him to take back his own oil.
“My son never killed a government man, never went to the mountains, never joined a death squad – perhaps therefore he deserved to be killed?”
A voice forever silenced
Naveed had been cultivating his ancestral land since he returned to Pakistan in 2018 from Dubai, where he had worked as a labourer. Illness had forced him to leave the hardships of migrant labour behind. He sought treatment in Karachi before settling back in Buleda, determined to turn his family’s farmland into a source of sustenance. He sowed wheat, rice, and vegetables, working tirelessly to make his farm self-sufficient, and supplemented the income as a Zamyad driver engaged in border trade.
Naveed carried a wallet containing his CNIC (identification card) and money, along with his mobile phone, in his pocket. When his body was found, the wallet was there but it was empty. Photo: By arrangement
In 2021, a token system was introduced by the military to regulate border trade here. Those engaged in the oil trade, particularly owners of Zamyad and Toyota 2000 vehicles, receive a token linked to their identity card to cross the border once a month within a designated 24-hour period. Despite the high risk of accidents, and the threat from robbers and Iranian forces, border trade is the dominant source of livelihood in Buleda. The absence of a system to transport produce and price manipulation by brokers limit the income from farming. A small minority work as migrant labourers in the Gulf countries.
A person distributing pamphlets related to missing persons. Photo: By arrangement
At 18, a relative had helped Naveed find work in Dubai. His hard work had enabled his father, a farmer, to build a house. But farming remained at the heart of their livelihood, and Naveed took pride in working the land.
Naveed though was more than a farmer. He was deeply engaged in his community, always ready to support those in distress. In Buleda, where enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are rampant, he became a pillar of strength for grieving families. When someone was abducted, relatives turned to him for help. He assisted them in reaching Turbat city for protests and press conferences, mobilizing others to stand against injustice.
“He loved people around him and would always help in whatever way he could,” his elder sister Zeba recalled. “He was the most compassionate in our family.”
For the authorities, Naveed’s activism made him a target. “If helping people makes him a commander, then we accept it,” his sister said bitterly. “But a commander would never go to a military camp and speak with a colonel. The camp had cameras, our house was close by – how could they claim not to know that Naveed was here, living openly, farming, and even contacting the FC for Uzair’s release?”
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) condemned Naveed’s extrajudicial killing on social media, stating: “Naveed was a vocal advocate for his brothers and other forcibly disappeared Baloch people. He was also actively involved in the Baloch Raaji Muchi (Baloch National Gathering).”
In July 2024, ten families of missing persons from Buleda had set up a camp in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Turbat, an hour-and-a-half’s drive from Gilli. Naveed was one of those managing the camp. “He would even cook for the families at the camp,” said Arif, a relative whose son Muslim had been forcibly disappeared and was later released.
“Naveed was not killed for any crime. He was killed for standing by the people of Buleda, for speaking out when others were too afraid to,” Zeba said.
