A Letter to My Beloved Brother, Shabir

Who is Shabir?

Shabir Baloch was a prominent Baloch student leader who served as the Central Information Secretary of the Baloch Students Organization–Azad (BSO-Azad). On 4 October 2016, he was abducted by Pakistani security forces during a military operation in Gowarkop, Kech district, Balochistan. His wife and family members witnessed the abduction. Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown.
Amnesty International issued an Urgent Action (UA 232/16) warning that Shabir was at serious risk of torture and extrajudicial execution. Despite repeated appeals, the Pakistani authorities have neither acknowledged his detention nor produced him in court. His family, particularly his wife Zarina and sister Seema, have led an unrelenting struggle, organizing protests, sit-ins, and awareness campaigns across Balochistan, Karachi, and Islamabad.

Shabir’s case has become emblematic of the thousands of enforced disappearances in Balochistan, where the state wages war not only on the bodies of its people but also on their memory, dignity, and resistance.

The Letter

To my beloved Shabir,

I send you my greetings. I cannot ask about your wellbeing, because in the prisons and torture cells of this state, no one is ever well.

Shabir, since that day, 4 October 2016, the colours of our lives have faded. Balochistan looks more war-torn than ever. Every day, people are forcibly disappeared, and countless bodies are thrown onto desolate roads and into the night’s darkness.

You often used to say in your gatherings that the state would treat Baloch as animals. At the time, perhaps I didn’t take it to heart. But today, when I see this cruelty with my own eyes, your words stab my heart every day. I never thought that one day I, your sister, would be the one to tell you about these circumstances. I always believed that you would be the one to come and explain what slavery really feels like.

But today, it is my pen that moves, and I write this letter to tell you how our world has changed since you were taken, and how Balochistan burns.

Shabir, I cannot bring myself to write Amma’s (mother’s) story of grief and sorrow, so forgive me in advance. She sits at the door day and night, hoping that her Shabir will return so she may hold you to her chest and wash away years of pain. She stays awake at nights, as though her sleep has also been imprisoned with you.

Shabir, since your disappearance, the happiness of our home has departed. Zarina is no longer the Zarina you once knew. Her smile has vanished. She no longer goes to gatherings, she no longer talks. Shabir, Zarina has become silent. I tell her again and again to refresh herself, to wear new clothes. But she only falls quiet and says:

“I will adorn myself only when my Shabir returns. Then I will become a bride again.”

And when she says this, tears stream down her face. I cannot bear it.

I decided to write you this letter, but Shabir, how can I capture nine years in a single letter? Still, I try.

Do you know, one day we went to Karachi for a rally? Zarina and I were the first to arrive at the Press Club. But the police were already there. As soon as we arrived, they put us into a vehicle and took us to their checkpoint. It was the first time in my life that I was put into a police van. I was terrified; tears filled my eyes. But my fear wasn’t for myself. I thought only of you, how you must have been dragged into a vehicle like this, beaten and blindfolded.

But Zarina, your kind Zarina, comforted me and said:

“Don’t worry, we are only at the checkpoint. Nothing will happen to us.”

Our lives now pass in consoling each other. We were released later, but those moments never left our hearts.

Shabir, the pain is so deep that even the pen hesitates to write it. Do you know a young man named Zeeshan Zaheer, who was struggling for the release of his missing father? One night, he too was forcibly disappeared. The next morning, his mutilated body was thrown outside his home as if it were a “gift.” His martyrdom plunged all of Balochistan into mourning. People poured out in every city, rallies were held, candles lit. We, too, held a rally at Hub Checkpoint under the banner of BYC (Baloch Yakjehti Committee).

Every eye shed tears at Zeeshan’s martyrdom. But when we reached Hub Checkpoint, the police had already surrounded the Press Club. They tried to stop us, but we refused to retreat and began a peaceful rally on the street. Within minutes, the police attacked. They beat us, kicked us, fired shots, and shoved us into vehicles, cursing us with words that shook our very souls.

Shabir, I kept asking myself that day, what crime had we committed that we were beaten, cursed, humiliated? We were taken to the checkpoint.

And then I understood: the state does not torture us only because we raise our voices. It tortures us because it knows we are no longer ignorant. It knows that activists like you, locked away in its torture cells, gave us awareness.

The state may try to suppress us all it wants, but as long as we breathe, we will continue to raise our voices for you and for every missing Baloch.

Shabir, after Zeeshan’s martyrdom when we were taken to the checkpoint, they kept abusing and cursing us. We were locked inside like criminals. Hours passed in suffocating heat, and they gave us no water. Some of the younger children with us began crying in fear.

Late at night, they brought us out one by one. The women police slapped us, pulled our hair, and pushed us around. Then, they shoved us back inside. We kept asking, “What crime have we committed? What law have we broken?” But instead of answers, they gave us more kicks and insults.

Two or three hours later, suddenly a loud voice came: “Get up, you are being released. Your people have come to take you.” But Shabir, no one felt joy at that moment. All of us looked at each other in shock and fear, wondering if it was another trap.

They brought us out of the checkpoint and drove us far away in police vehicles. We thought we were being released, but instead they took us to Gadani Jail. There, we were put into filthy, stinking cells where even animals would refuse to stay. The smell was unbearable; mosquitoes swarmed everywhere. We could not sleep all night.

The next morning, they took our names and made us stand in lines as if we were criminals. Then they brought some stale food, hardly edible. Some of the younger girls couldn’t eat at all. Our clothes were torn from the beatings, our hair disheveled, our faces swollen. But Shabir, none of this broke our spirit.

We stood up in front of the jail staff and said:

“We are not criminals. We are here because we raised our voices for our missing brothers. If you think you can silence us with jails, you are mistaken. We will raise our voices louder than before.”
After two days, they suddenly released us without explanation. They left us on the roadside in the middle of the night. We reached home exhausted, our bodies bruised, but our resolve stronger than ever.

Shabir, what I want to tell you is this: the path you showed us, the awareness you gave us, is alive. The state may throw us in checkpoints, torture cells, or jails, but it cannot break the chain of resistance.

Shabir, do you remember how nine years ago Seema our sister was too shy even to speak? She couldn’t even speak Urdu properly. But today, Shabir, Seema stands in the streets of Karachi and Islamabad, defying the state in Urdu.

Your grief has made us strong, Shabir. We are growing in our sorrow.

Now I end this letter, with only one hope that this pain of separation may one day end. But the loving memories of you will always live in my heart. And I make this promise: as long as there is breath in our bodies, none of us will stop resisting for the disappeared.

Shabir, we have learned from Dr. Mahrang Baloch that resistance is life, and in that life, we remain alive.

The bitter memories of your absence can never be erased. All I can wish is this: that you, along with all the disappeared, may soon return, so that we too may live like other people of the world.

Your little sister,
Sammul

Final Note

Shabir’s story is not only the pain of one family. It is the pain of a nation where thousands of mothers, wives, and sisters continue to wait for their disappeared loved ones. This letter, written in love and anguish, is also a manifesto of resistance: proof that even in the darkest cells, memory survives, and the struggle for freedom cannot be silenced.