As Pakistan prepares for national elections next week, political enthusiasm is sweeping the country. The voices of hundreds of people who marched on Islamabad in December, despite the political unrest, spoke a different story.

Among them was Sammi Deen Baloch, who, like she has been doing for the past 14 years, was holding a laminated picture of her father and demanding to know where he is and whether he is even still alive.

Leading the march were multiple women, such as Sammi, who had walked almost a thousand miles from the province of Balochistan to voice their support for their family members who had vanished in what they refer to as "forced disappearances." Water cannons, tear gas, and arrests were used to quell the protestors.

However, what exactly is Balochistan, and why is it the object of these attacks:

A protracted nationalist insurrection has afflicted Balochistan, a region in western Pakistan. In a brutal counterinsurgency battle, separatist insurgents demand an independent Balochistan, accusing Pakistani security forces of oppressing them.

The demonstrators claim that Pakistani forces have killed, tortured, and unjustly jailed their loved ones—mostly men—and that these acts have gone unpunished. Such disappearances are classified by the UN as actions carried out by state agents.

When Sammi Deen Baloch was just eleven years old, her father, Deen Mohammad Baloch, disappeared. His whereabouts have been a mystery since the military took him hostage from the hospital where he was employed as a physician in June 2009. Since 2004, the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons has documented over 7,000 incidents of this kind.

Forcible disappearances continue, even though Pakistan's government officially acknowledges a small portion of these incidents. Despite the passage of legislation making forced disappearances illegal in 2021, its execution is still problematic.

The state has designated the Baloch activists as troublemakers, and they are subject to arbitrary detentions based on suspicion or misinformation. Rather of letting the accused disappear on a whim, protestors want due process and want the authorities to bring them before a judge.

The accounts are terrifying. Two years after Mahrang Baloch was kidnapped, his father was discovered dead with visible evidence of torture. Numerous more are tortured and kept in secrecy while going missing.

The Baloch people feel exploited, with vast natural resources remaining untapped while their socioeconomic conditions deteriorate. Recent airstrikes by Iran and Pakistan targeting Baloch militants further highlight the region's volatility. Despite being an important part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, development eludes Balochistan, exacerbating grievances. Observers believe that resolving the conflict in Balochistan is crucial for Pakistan's stability. But, with the upcoming elections offering little hope for change, the Baloch people continue to be marginalized and hopeless.

پاکستان عام انتخابات کے لیے تیار ہوتا ہوا سیاستی حماس میں گرفتار ہے۔ مگر سیاسی بے ترتیبی کے درمیان، دسمبر میں دو سو شہریوں کی آوازیں جو اسلام آباد کی طرف مسیر پر چل رہے تھے، ایک مختلف کہانی کو آواز دیتی تھیں۔

ان میں سے ایک سامی دین بلوچ بھی تھیں، انہوں نے اپنے والد کی تصویر کو قائمہ لے کر ایک گود میں گلے لگایا، جیسا کہ وہ پچودہ چودہ سال سے کرتی رہی ہیں، اور ان کو اپنے والد کی موجودگی کی معلومات مانگتے ہوئے، یقینی نہیں کہ وہ زندہ ہیں یا نہیں۔

مارچ کی سرحدوں پر خواتین کی فوج میں سے کئی تھیں، جن میں سامی بھی تھیں، تقریباً 1000 میل کی پیدل چلنے والے بلوچستان صوبے سے، اپنے غائب ہونے والے خاندانی افراد کے لیے اظہار یکجہتی کی طلب کرتے ہوئے، جنہوں نے انہیں "جبری غائبین" کہا ہے۔ احتجاجوں کو گرفتاریوں، آنسو گیس، اور پانی کے فوارے کے ساتھ مواجہ کیا گیا۔