Karachi: Noori, 65, was asleep on the morning of July 28, 2015, when forces surrounded her home in Pasni, Balochistan, before breaking down the fragile gate with their boots and storming in.
“I almost fainted when I saw hundreds of forces inside my home,” she recalls, a decade on. “They shouted, ‘Where is Murad Baksh?’”
Murad Baksh is her eldest son, and was a fisherman like his father.
Noori, Murad Baksh’s mother screamed with all her strength when forces raided their house and neighbourhood. But a heavy blow to her head with a rifle butt silenced her. Photo: By arrangement
Saleh Mohammad, Noori’s husband, was a headman among fishermen and the family had led a peaceful, middle-class existence till a car accident snatched him. Just as they were picking up the pieces and trying to rebuild their life, their world was shattered again that morning.
Noori’s room was close to the main gate, so she had been the first to wake up from the commotion. Her son’s room was farther inside. “I pointed to my son’s room, unaware of what was happening,” she said. “To this day, I curse myself.”
The forces rushed in, waking his infant children who began crying uncontrollably. “They grabbed Murad Baksh by the hands and dragged him towards my mother-in-law’s veranda,” his wife Hoor Gul said. “I didn’t know whether to comfort my crying children or follow them. In the end, I left my children and ran after them.”
Murad Baksh’s wife Hoor Gul. Photo: By arrangement
Within minutes, neighbours had been gathered in Noori’s house. The forces had raided the neighbourhood and brought in other men. “I remember,” Hoor said, “one of the soldiers was on a wireless phone, asking, ‘Should I bring them all?’ I couldn’t hear the response, but I saw my husband, Murad Baksh, and his younger brother Sartaj being dragged away right before my eyes.” No one else was taken that day.
Noori screamed with all her strength, but a heavy blow to her head with a rifle butt silenced her.
Murad Baksh and Sartaj were victims of enforced disappearance, taken from their home.
A year and two months later, Sartaj was released. Murad Baksh remains missing to this day. There is no official explanation for or acknowledgement of his disappearance.
When he returned, Sartaj told the family that the last time he saw his brother was when they were dragged out of their home into separate vehicles. He does not speak about where he was taken and detained. Such silence, born out of trauma or fear, is not uncommon.
At the time of his disappearance, Murad Baksh’s youngest son, Peer Baksh, was seven months old and his two other children, twins, were one-and-a-half years old. “What hurts me the most is that none of my three children has any memory of their father,” his wife said amid tears. “My children see themselves as fatherless, and I as a widow, because I have never been able to tell them where their father is.”
Murad Baksh remains missing to this day. An image of his house. Photo: By arrangement
Out of fear, the family never protested. They are too poor to approach the courts. When Sartaj was released, they held on to hope that Murad Baksh would be freed as well. But as the years dragged on, that hope has slowly faded.
It wasn’t until last year, during the Baloch Yakjeheti Committee (BYC) sit-in in Islamabad, when the group announced a nationwide protest as part of their “fourth phase,” that Murad Baksh’s family finally took to the streets in Pasni. It was their first public protest. “I held a microphone for the first time, in front of hundreds of people, but I couldn’t utter a single word,” his mother said. “I just dropped the mic.”
Not fiction
At the end of July 2024, a month filled with curfews, no network or internet access, closed shops, and forces everywhere, Noori’s world crumbled once again. This time, she received the body of her youngest son Meher Ali, whom they affectionately called “Rahul”. “My heart was already pierced for my missing son, and now I have lost another son forever,” she said.
Twenty-year-old Meher Ali aka (Rahul). Photo: By arrangement
Meher Ali was 10 years old when Murad Baksh was taken away. A drummer, the little money he earned went towards bringing up his elder brother’s three children, whom the family is too poor to educate.
Called by three of his friends for a swim in Juddy Sea one afternoon, Meher Ali was swept away by a large wave. His friends could only watch in horror as his hands briefly appeared above the water, struggling to surface, and he shouted for help before disappearing under the waves. His friends returned to inform the community of the tragedy.
Sartaj, who too is a fisherman now, rushed with neighbours to search for him. They cast nets and tried everything they could, but the hours stretched into the night with no success. Early the next morning, passersby near the sea discovered his body at “Samandari Katao.”
According to local accounts, Meher Ali’s body had not swelled from the water but his nose bled continuously until his burial. A scar or wound on his forehead had turned green, they said.
Late-night knock
Fourteen days before Meher Ali died, in July, the family had received another chilling visit. The forces had entered their home late at night, around 1 am. “Where is Rahul?” they had demanded.
His elder sister Abida recalled their surprise that the forces had used his nickname. Meher Ali had chosen the name Rahul for himself, possibly inspired by a Bollywood character, and his family and friends had embraced it. When the forces arrived, he was at a neighbour’s house to watch a football match because the family doesn’t own a television. “Rahul loved football and was a player in the area,” Abida added.
The forces searched the entire house but didn’t force them to summon Rahul. Instead, they questioned Noori, asking about her children and how they made a living, and left around 3 am.
According to local residents, the forces had arrived in 12 vehicles that night.
The next morning, Meher Ali, along with a family member, voluntarily went to the forces’ camp in Pasni to present himself and prove his innocence, hoping to avoid the fate of his older brother, Murad Baksh. “The officer in charge said they had only come to greet his mother,” Noori recounted. “But why would forces in 12 vehicles come to ‘greet’ me at 2 am, the mother of a man they had already taken?”
Abida said this wasn’t the first time the forces had come looking for Rahul. On a previous occasion, they had searched the house while he was out performing as a drummer at a wedding.
“I wish that night my son had been home instead of watching the football match,” Noori tearfully said. “At least if the forces had taken him, I could have hoped he was alive somewhere. But now, I have only received his dead body.”
The family’s and Noori’s suspicions are understandable. One son, Murad Baksh, has been missing for a decade after being taken away from home. Meher Ali himself was questioned twice by the forces before his untimely death. Photo: By arrangement
For his sister, the mystery surrounding Meher Ali’s death is unbearable. “It haunts me that the forces kept coming to our house looking for him, and then one day he goes out for a swim, and within 45 minutes we hear that he has drowned.”
One of the family members received a phone call from someone in the forces, inquiring about the death. “Why would the forces be interested?” Abida asked.
Also read: After Enforced Disappearances, Targeted Killings Push Baloch Youth into State of Fear
“My son was killed. He was bleeding. The blood from his nose never stopped,” his mother kept repeating. “I know he is a martyr because I’ve heard that martyrs’ blood never stops.”
The family meanwhile continues to plead for the release of Murad Baksh. “At least we want to know why Murad Baksh has been held in the darkness of dungeons for 10 long years,” his mother said.
State’s role
Pasni, a coastal town in Gwadar district where fishing is the main source of livelihood, sees many deaths by drowning. Meher Ali’s death too might have been an accident. But without a proper post-mortem system in the town, it remains unclear whether this was indeed so or something more sinister had occurred.
Noori’s room was close to the main gate, so she had been the first to wake up from the commotion. The inside of the house. Photo: By arrangement
The unrest in Balochistan, marked by military raids, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, has left Baloch families in a constant state of distress and suspicious of the state. Its involvement is feared whenever anything goes wrong.
Meher Ali’s family’s suspicions are understandable. One son, Murad Baksh, has been missing for a decade after being taken away from home. Meher Ali himself was questioned twice by the forces before his untimely death. Under such circumstances, it becomes difficult to view any tragedy as purely coincidental.