When we chant the slogan “Taleem do, zindan nahi” (Give education, not prison) on the streets in Pakistan. we truly mean it — because as Baloch students, our lives have always been destined for something different from the average students in Pakistan. We have lost thousands of our youth to years of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. We say this with the weight of lived experience coming from a land where lives are systematically devalued by the very hands of the state
When we say our students need education, we are demanding recognition — recognition that Baloch youth also have dreams and a right to a future filled with hope and opportunity. But tragically, our young people often end up as victims of enforced disappearance, subjected to years of suffering, harassment, and even death. Even in universities located in Pakistan’s capital cities, Baloch students face constant profiling and are unjustly labeled as terrorists.
We are constantly told that being Baloch alone will determine our fate—whether we get to pursue an education or end up suffering in the state’s torture cells. For countless Baloch youth, this isn’t just a warning; it’s a lived reality.
The lives of Baloch students are controlled by the hands of state agencies, aiming to reshape their identities through a brutal policy of denial, marginalization, and systematic torture. Balochistan has long been portrayed as a threatening place, a black hole where lives disappear without accountability and voices are silenced in the shadows.
People are abducted, killed, and imprisoned for long years, but yet no one cares to speak against this. The height of colonization is reached when oppressors seek not just to control a people, but to erase their very existence, to render an entire nation invisible within the span of a century.
We all have witnessed many cases where people, were tortured and later killed and still thousands of people are striving for life behind the darkness. This suffering isn’t limited to those imprisoned, it casts unbearable, lasting scars on everyone connected to them. If Zakir is languishing in a cell, his mother mourns every night, yearning for just a glimpse of her son. If Zahid is missing, then Kambar is left behind, clinging to hope and struggling for his return. Every disappearance fractures a whole world behind it.
In Balochistan, we came across several cases of youth being a victim of enforced disappearance, along with news of their mutilated dead bodies being found. But no one mourns for them – the endless miseries left unheard.
The same is with the innocent youngster Feroz, whose case has been seen and ignored by many- the one who only headed toward education and ended up being the victim of enforced disappearance for 3 years from the safest city of Pakistan. Feroz, the child of Noor Baksh who hailed from Absor Turbat was abducted by state agencies on May 11, 2022, from ARID Agriculture University in Rawalpindi. He hoped for a better future and aimed to serve his family. Despite being from a middle-class background, his father prioritized his son’s safety.
A father dreams endlessly for his child, nurturing him with the hope that one day he will grow up to be his support. Noor Baksh, like many fathers, tied all his aspirations to his son, Feroz. He sent him away from Balochistan — a place where life is hardly valued — to Rawalpindi-Islamabad, in the hope that his son would have a secure an educational and professional career , and someday return to support his family. But all his hopes were crashed when Feroz was abducted without any trace.
Only those who have endured such pain can truly understand the depth of a parent’s anguish — especially a mother, who searches for her lost child in every dream, every moment. I once spoke with the mother of a man who had been missing since 2014. Through teary eyes, she told me, “Not a single night has passed without me hoping that he’ll return. That hope has never left my thoughts.”
The grief a mother carries is immense, she may not even know if he’s still alive. Her mourning is constant, her heart aching in silence. When Feroz’s mother weeps for him, her pain is something we — living safely under our parents’ protection — can hardly understand.
Feroz’s father once said, “I sacrificed half of our bread to send him to Rawalpindi, so he wouldn’t be a driver in Balochistan. I wanted him to be an educated child.” In his eyes there was a sorrowful mixture of dreams and desperation — a father’s silent hopes for his son’s future, yearning to be fulfilled. But those were the hopes of a Baloch father, and the dreams of a Baloch son — destined, perhaps, to become just another victim.
Feroz’s hopes are visible in a simple photo of him taking a selfie beside his university board — may seem ordinary to us, but it carries the weight of a life-changing journey. That image wasn’t just a memory; it was a reflection of his dreams, his clueless happiness, and an unknown fate of him. Like any of us who step into university with hope, he too must have carried joy and anticipation in his heart. He had no idea what fate lay ahead. The future quietly prepared a storm.
By 2022, perhaps Feroz was locked away somewhere in, a dark cell, his youthful dreams might be burning with him. For Feroz, the joy of becoming a student in Rawalpindi must have felt just as real and vibrant as it does for us — the classes, the campus life, the football grounds — all things he once yearned to be a part of, now out nothing for him but mere a dungeon. He may still mourn in silence, wondering why he had to keep away from the life that all students enjoy. Even the roads filled with laughter that we take for granted might have been part of his imagination — laughter now caged, silenced far beyond our reach.
This is the fate forced upon a Baloch boy — Feroz’s fate — ripped from him against his will. He was innocent, quiet, and full of warmth — now kept far from his mother’s eyes.
Since May 11, 2022, Feroz Baloch’s whereabouts have remained unknown. When other Baloch students enrolled at Arid Agriculture University attempted to file a First Information Report (FIR) at a nearby police station regarding his disappearance, the police refused. The inspector claimed such cases were “sensitive” and that they did not have the authority to register cases involving forcibly disappeared Baloch students.
At the time of his abduction, Feroz was a second-semester B.Ed. Student. He had left his room to go to the university library — a short, ordinary walk that ended in tragedy. That, meant to lead him to knowledge, instead led to a prison from which he has yet to return. He was carrying books — his young hands full of excitement and hope, his eyes looking forward to exploring the world of knowledge. But instead, he was thrown into darkness, and those same hands may now be tied behind his back. Who would have imagined that a student carrying books could end up in a place so grim — not a library, but a cell?
The day after his abduction, his fellow students again went to the police station to demand an FIR. According to lawyer Imaan Mazari, the police initially refused, stating that the case was “different” because it was connected to Balochistan. The students waited at the station for over eight hours. During that time, they received a threatening phone call from a man who identified himself as General Tariq, claiming to be from the Army.
Imaan Mazari stated that despite this direct threat, the police refused to include the general’s name in the FIR, saying they could not take action against military personnel. Eventually, after long resistance, the FIR was registered — but only after the students endured hours of pressure and intimidation.
What made the situation even more disturbing was that when the students approached the university administration to review the security camera footage, the administration refused. This revealed the deep level of fear and complicity across institutions — from the police to the university — all of whom appeared unwilling to act because the case was reportedly backed by the military.
Two days later, Feroz’s whereabouts remained unknown, raising serious concerns for his safety. In response, the Baloch Student Council Islamabad (the Baloch student community in the capital) raised their voices on social media, highlighting their fears about Feroz’s well-being.
Protests followed inside Arid University, demanding Feroz’s safe return. When those protests yielded no response, students marched to the National Press Club in Islamabad, where Feroz’s father, Noor Bakhsh, joined them. In an interview with Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor, he described his son as an innocent student focused solely on his education. He pleaded with Pakistan’s judiciary, saying that if his son had committed any crime, he should be presented before a court of law.
With a trembling voice, he repeated his one hope: “I still believe the judiciary will bring my son back.” But tragically, like many other fathers of missing persons, Noor Bakhsh placed his hopes in a system too afraid to confront the very forces responsible for crushing those hopes.
After several fruitless efforts, students began a hunger strike outside Arid University. On the third day, the university administration agreed to the students’ demands and assured them that Feroz would be recovered within two days. However, their promises proved empty and Feroz remains missing.
According to advocate Imaan Mazari, Feroz’s family requested that the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench hear his case. But their petitions were repeatedly rejected. According to Noor Baksh,father of Feroz, he went to the Lahore High Court, where the case was heard but didn’t proceed further by stating that, your child hadn’t disappeared by anyone.
The case was filed in the Islamabad high court. “Judge Javed Iqbal stated that your child has gone to Afghanistan. I stood up when I heard this, and said to them, if my son has gone to Afghanistan then you have authority to find him. Because he owns an ID card from Pakistan, he has a Pakistani SIM card and mobile phone. I can assure you that my son hasn’t gone to Afghanistan”, he recounted with an aggressive tone, reflecting on what happened in Islamabad High Court where his son’s case was supposed to proceed with justice. Thiscould only happen to a father where his emotions are being played, the emotions about his lost child. His voice was so grim when he was talking about his lost child — perhaps reflecting the absence of a child whom with once played. Now lost somewhere in an unknown place.
In one petition, it was falsely claimed that Feroz had been recovered. However, his family denied this assertion, confirming that he had not returned home.
According to Feroz father, that statement about Feroz being released was false. On December 2, 2024, the high court in Quetta revealed that the boy named Feroz who was released is the son of Abdul Hakeem from Panjgur. Then it was declared that Feroz son of Noor Baksh wasn’t released yet. It wasn’t just a false statement but a manipulation of emotions – those of the parents who are constantly hoping for their child’s return.
“It has been three years – we are helpless about our lives. Our situations are disturbed, we don’t even know how our lives are going. My other children refuse to go to school, they say they will taken away just like their elder brother,” he said.
Feroz’s father searched for him by lawful means in Lahore, Islamabad, and Quetta, but no traces of his lost child were found. Feroz’s father mostly prefers to stay house because, according to him he finds nothing in that house, mere memories of his lost child. He helplessly with a dim voice said, “Now our house feels like a barren land, Only filled emptiness. We can’t eat together, and when we try to sit down, his memories hit us harshly. Our minds are filled with thousands of cruel thoughts about our child.”
The house is full of sorrows, and the emotions of love merely become the threat of fear to a father constantly bruising their soul. According to Feroz’s father whenever he gets a single call, his thoughts reach on peak not knowing whether to think good for his child or accept any bad news.
“Firstly, I say, ‘Ya Allah!’ Before I receive the call, my mind fills with confusion, wondering if it might be from Feroz or if it’s something bad about him. A brutal storm of messy thoughts crashes into my mind,” he demonstrated his grief.
In Balochistan, when families receive news about the release or death of a missing person, they wonder whether their child is alive or dead. Noor Baksh stated that Feroz’s mother often expressed her desire to go to the university and Islamabad to seek answers about her child, but he told her, saying they shouldn’t expect anything from them.
One of the tragic sayings of Feroz’s father was that, “Life is in the hands of God. When someone dies a natural death and disappears, it may not hurt as much as the disappearance of someone who leaves without a trace—this kind of living disappearance aches deeply in the soul. We struggle with the uncertainty of not knowing if our child is dead or alive.”
Life becomes lifeless for parents and those who endure this pain. We often come across posts on social media that feature images of individuals being abducted. These occurrences have become so frequent that they have started to feel like the new normal. We simply see the picture, repost it, and acknowledge that another person has become a victim.
According to Feroz lawyer, Iman mazari, the last hearing of the Feroz case was going to take place on 6 March, 2024 by a larger bench, but the larger bench broke when Justice Arab Tahir recused himself. By her saying, his case is still pending in 2025 because the larger bench that was made to proceed with these cases has not been active and has not been reconstituted.
In Balochistan, disappearances and related anguish are so commonplace that we sometimes question whom we choose to interview. The people we speak to may carry different stories, but their pain is the same—the same sorrow that stems from the cruelty affecting the shattered souls of Balochistan.
“She mourns every moment, but now her tears have dried, like those of other mothers in Balochistan”, he said. As it is not the story of one single youngster they are countless individuals suffering behind bars, leaving their families without any trace. Feroz is one of them. His story reflects not only his pain and that of his parent, but also death of young dreams, the loss of vibrant hopes, and a storm of uncertainties. he isn’t alone — thousands of unseen stories of such youngsters are waiting to be heard for once. The story of Feroz doesn’t end here, its painful story will last until he returns to university library where he was headed when was captured.
