Abdul Haq Baloch

Incident Description: Shot Dead

On September 29, 2012, Correspondent for ARY News television station and Khuzdar Press Club, Abdul Haq Baloch, was gunned down by unidentified armed men when he was on his way home in the town of Khuzdar in the Balochistan province. Unidentified masked armed men riding a motorbike sprayed Baloch with a volley of bullets and fatally shot him. They fled the scene. He left behind a widow and two sons.

Journalists in Khuzdar said it was difficult to guess who may have been behind the murder as there were a number of opposing militant groups in the area; some support separatists while others opposed them. In 2012, President of the Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ), Essa Tareen, had told PPF in a telephone message, that the separatist group Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) had warned all leading newspaper offices in Balochistan to give coverage to its activities or face dire consequences.

The BLA, however, denied it was behind Baloch’s murder. Meanwhile, senior journalist Hamid Mir had told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that Baloch had been threatened by the Baluch Musalah Diffa Army (BMDA) in November and was named on a hit-list issued by their spokesperson. Speaking to PPF, Khuzdar Press Club President Abdullah Shewani also reiterated the same.

On August 26, 2020, Baloch’s brother Abdul Razzaq said that eight years on, his brother’s case remains under investigation, adding that he is not satisfied with the progress of the case. He noted that whenever he goes to a police station, he is told they can’t find any clues to Baloch’s murder. City Police Station Station House Officer (SHO) Amanullah told PPF that none of the accused in the case had been arrested yet.

He said that it remains under investigation and has been categorized as a Class-A case, which pertains to cases in which the accused are unknown or untraceable. The former Khuzdar Press Club President Allah Buksh Nadeem said that in 2012, when he was president of the club, eight journalists were killed and authorities had filed criminal complaints, First Information Report (FIR), against unknown people.

He said none of the accused were arrested and no proper investigations were carried out. Nadeem said that working as a journalist in Balochistan is very difficult as there are many elements and parties, who he said, harass and threaten journalists because they want only their versions to be published “... Which is not in our hands as we are just a bureau not a head office or an owner of any journalist organization,” he said, adding that no one knows why Baloch was killed and who was behind it.