A pall of gloom has descended over Balochistan with a massive rise in ‘enforced disappearances’ in recent days. There is a stunned silence in the region that emanates not from peace, but fear. A silence that carries the weight of missing names, of mothers who stand outside district offices clutching faded photographs, of fathers who scan every passing face hoping for a glimpse of their sons.

In the last week alone, around fifteen more people have vanished in separate incidents across multiple districts in this restless province. Fifteen lives erased from the map without explanation, without record, without justice. The number may sound small to those far away, but to the families it is an unbearable universe of pain.

This is not new. Enforced disappearances have long haunted Balochistan like a shadow that refuses to fade. It is a pattern that repeats itself with grim precision—someone is picked up in daylight or snatched at night, witnesses are warned into silence, and official statements claim ignorance. There are no arrests to challenge in court, no charges to defend, no bodies to bury. Only waiting. Endless waiting.

Every disappearance leaves a crater in the fabric of a family. Mothers turn into campaigners, fathers into mourners, children into strangers in their own homes. In the narrow streets of Turbat, Gwadar, Panjgur, and Quetta, walls bear posters of the disappeared, printed in black and white, their eyes forever open, staring into a justice system that never looks back. Each poster is an accusation and a prayer at once.

The people of........

© News18