This has been the most difficult Eid for the Pakistanis.

Skyrocketing inflation, shortage of food, economic distress, rising violence and deaths over food rations dampened the festivities in the holy month of Ramadan. The people had little leadership to look forward to either in politics or in the military. Pakistani politicians have been squabbling and the uniform is under attack from the forces it raised – the Taliban, or the ones it tried to decimate – the Baloch.

Unarguably, it has been a bleak Eid in Pakistan.

It was no different for Pakistan’s largest province Balochistan, where the community celebrated Eid in a very different manner. The Baloch people mourned their dead and held candle light vigils for the safe return of those in clandestine custody of the Pakistani government.

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Women took out processions with placards of their family members who have been kidnapped by Pakistani agencies – either the security forces or the spy agencies. Eid celebrations were marked with hope that the missing persons would somehow come back home and the State will shut the door on the evil practice that brings ruin upon families as breadwinners go missing mysteriously.

The Baloch Human Rights Council (BHRC) recently blamed Pakistani security forces – military, police, secret agencies, auxiliary militias, and local collaborators known as Death Squads, for enforced disappearances as part of a systematic suppression of the Baloch people.

The BHRC which released its quarterly human rights report on enforced disappearances last week says: “According to the data collected by the BHRC, 92 persons were subjected to enforced disappearances between January 2023 to March 2023, while four of the missing persons were extrajudicially killed by Pakistani security forces. Numerous forcibly disappeared persons are minors and students”.

The vast, spread-out sandy spaces of Balochistan also provided people the opportunity to gather and listen to fiery speeches about the historical and economic crimes being perpetrated on the Baloch community by Pakistan, and also China through its transport corridors and mining operations. One such video shows a cleric speak about missing persons and torture of the Baloch people.

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In some of the videos, it was not just the women from the affected families but students and political parties which took out processions against Pakistan. As the feisty Baloch mount a powerful offensive against the security forces, the blowback has been in the form of strafing from helicopter gunships, drone attacks and retaliation by ground forces.

It has become routine for the Baloch to find tortured and mutilated bodies of kidnapped people lying in remote deserts and mountains of the sparsely-populated province. Activists say that these bodies mostly belong to people who have been forcibly abducted by Death Squads supported by the Pakistani State. Nurtured and raised by Pakistan, the Death Squads can be both – religiously-motivated groups or outright criminal groups, who kill and dump people in Balochistan’s vast areas.

As the conflict intensifies and the numbers of missing people rise, more Baloch women are coming out to protest. Pakistan has responded with full force by abducting Baloch women and students. Its abusive actions against the Baloch women have not gone unnoticed in the international fraternity.

For the government employees in Balochistan, a bankrupt government has not provided salaries in the holy month. The chief minister as well as the finance minister have been pleading with the Shehbaz Sharif government in Islamabad to release the funds for Balochistan but their appeals have been in vain for Pakistan itself has mismanaged its economy.

With the hashtags – ‘EidUlFitr’, ‘EndEnforcedDisappearaces’, ‘MissingPersons’, ‘Balochistan’ and ‘Pakistani’, the Baloch community celebrated an unhappy Eid across the cities of Islamabad, Quetta, Gwadar, Panjgur and many more.

Also read: Murder and rape of teenage women in Barkhan likely to broaden Baloch movement