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This story struck me, one because it's been published on Dawn News, despite being a liberal-left news outlet it still prefers to tread carefully on issues such as Baluchistan. Two, because this is a very ordinary story. This isn't about some rebel fighting in Khuzdar or Kharan, trying to kill FC soldiers and blow up pipelines that the Chinese built, this is a regular individual from Lyari, with a wife and daughters, just living a normal life, pursuing his interest in Baluch poetry, literature, music. He had his opinions and his interests, but in essence he wasn't any sort of 'leader'. He was a communist and a good man in his own neighbourhood. Yet still, this simple man, who poses no threat to security, gets picked up by agencies while his daughters and loved ones refuse to eat and come out everyday asking 'where is my dad?'
Sad state of affairs.
Read full story here
"Maikan mostly stays silent. The 13-year-old girl often refuses to eat; neither does she want to go to school. She wakes up in the night, goes to the roof of her house and sits there all by herself, says her elder sister Hani.
A few months ago, Maikan was as chirpy and giggly as most girls in her age group. She changed after her father, Abdul Wahid Baloch, went missing on July 26, 2016.
Wahid, 54, has been an active participant in the civic life of his neighbourhood. Many Lyari residents remember him as Comrade Wahid who, according to them, eagerly helped all and sundry. Working as a telephone operator at the Civil Hospital Karachi, he would often be seen assisting patients coming from not just his own neighbourhood but also from rural parts of Sindh and Balochistan.
Wahid’s affiliation with BNM was not secret and Hani says he never got into trouble with intelligence agencies. “My father never got any threat from [intelligence] agencies or anyone else [over his political affiliation]. Otherwise, he would have informed us.” Even when he walked to his office from home during frequent breakdowns of law and order in Lyari, he never noticed anyone following him, she says.
They were on their way back to Karachi in a passenger van on the noon of July 26 when some men ordered the vehicle to stop near a toll plaza on one of the main entrances to the city. The passengers thought it was a routine police checking. It turned out to be anything but.
Two men – one clad in white shalwar kameez and the other in a grey dress – got into the van and glanced at all the passengers, says Naguman, who was sitting in the first row of seats along with Wahid. The two were told to produce their national identity cards. The man in white clothes inspected their cards while at the same time looking at his cell phone as if matching their personal information with something in his device, Naguman adds. After careful inspection, he handed Naguman’s card back but told Wahid to get off the van. The two men took him into a big blue jeep parked nearby. Nobody in his family and among his friends knows who took him away and to where.
Wahid has been missing since."
Sad state of affairs.
Read full story here
"Maikan mostly stays silent. The 13-year-old girl often refuses to eat; neither does she want to go to school. She wakes up in the night, goes to the roof of her house and sits there all by herself, says her elder sister Hani.
A few months ago, Maikan was as chirpy and giggly as most girls in her age group. She changed after her father, Abdul Wahid Baloch, went missing on July 26, 2016.
Wahid, 54, has been an active participant in the civic life of his neighbourhood. Many Lyari residents remember him as Comrade Wahid who, according to them, eagerly helped all and sundry. Working as a telephone operator at the Civil Hospital Karachi, he would often be seen assisting patients coming from not just his own neighbourhood but also from rural parts of Sindh and Balochistan.
Wahid’s affiliation with BNM was not secret and Hani says he never got into trouble with intelligence agencies. “My father never got any threat from [intelligence] agencies or anyone else [over his political affiliation]. Otherwise, he would have informed us.” Even when he walked to his office from home during frequent breakdowns of law and order in Lyari, he never noticed anyone following him, she says.
They were on their way back to Karachi in a passenger van on the noon of July 26 when some men ordered the vehicle to stop near a toll plaza on one of the main entrances to the city. The passengers thought it was a routine police checking. It turned out to be anything but.
Two men – one clad in white shalwar kameez and the other in a grey dress – got into the van and glanced at all the passengers, says Naguman, who was sitting in the first row of seats along with Wahid. The two were told to produce their national identity cards. The man in white clothes inspected their cards while at the same time looking at his cell phone as if matching their personal information with something in his device, Naguman adds. After careful inspection, he handed Naguman’s card back but told Wahid to get off the van. The two men took him into a big blue jeep parked nearby. Nobody in his family and among his friends knows who took him away and to where.
Wahid has been missing since."
