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These lines were conveyed to a reporter who could say he was from Kalat. Two phone calls came from numbers he didn’t recognise a year ago. The reporter used to cover human rights protests. He told people at work about the threats and they recommended he go to the police and file a formal complaint. Trying to be a journalist in Balochistan is one thing, having an active death wish is another.
The Kalat reporter didn’t want to become Abdul Latif Baloch who had worked for daily Intekhab and Aaj TV until he was permanently stopped from working and breathing, in Mashkey, Awaran on May 24, 2025. Some men had come to get Abdul Latif at home but he had not wanted to go with them. It was the middle of the night. His wife and two daughters didn’t want him to go either because in February, Latif’s son, Saif, was similarly taken. His body was found on March 26. Four of the men decided to use their AK-47s to settle the matter. If you try to get an update on the investigation, please know that the Mashkey Police Station has no official phone number. Latif’s murder FIR has not been filed yet. Even if it was, there are no records at the station because it was set on fire once. Shahid Rind, an Aide to the Chief Minister of Balochistan, was asked about Latif’s case, but he did not respond.
Forty-two journalists have been killed in Balochistan since 2008, according to the Balochistan Union of Journalists. Those who did not make it to that list will tell you how hard some people tried to put them on it. By that count, at least 42 killers are on the loose. There have never been any convictions.
At least six district reporters declined to be interviewed for this story, citing security concerns, while several others agreed to speak only anonymously.
Why are Baloch journalists so sought-after?
After Quetta, it is Khuzdar which is home to the second largest number of graves of journalists (10 since 2006, including the three presidents of the press club, after which it was shut for four years).
Every type of person, group, entity, organisation, government and law-and-order body that you can think of is heavily invested in the quality of the freedom of press here.
One solution to maintaining the quality of the freedom of the press has been recommended by the union. It would like journalism to be classified as a proper career protected by the State with a Journalists Protection Bill, Balochistan, like the ones elsewhere in Pakistan. They talk about welfare and insurance and hostile environment training. In February, CM’s Aide Shahid Rind had told the Quetta Press Club that the government was ready to take up the bill and discuss it with all stakeholders (see above). The union’s president hopes he will live to report that it passed this year.
The beat
Most of the reporters in the districts know what is considered a dangerous story. What isn’t always understood, until it’s too late, is that reporting on construction materials, or a batch of leaked exam papers, can carry the same cost.
The good news is, however, that journalists have learnt how to work safely. They stick to government handouts and press releases. But the more experienced ones will tell you that you should still check because even reporting on information that appeared in a press release is still no guarantee. A freelance journalist now based in Islamabad, Ayaz Bazai, was being hunted by a private militia over a vlog he published on the mass grave of Tutak, Khuzdar. Bazai had just cited a BBC report in the video.
Censorship from the outside and self-censorship from within are effective because they are good at keeping reporters alive, says Iqbal Khattak in a Freedom Network report, a non-profit that keeps track. Sometimes, of course, silence isn’t censorship. Mobile internet services in Panjgur have been suspended since 2022. It was restored for ten days in September 2025 and then switched off again. In Dera Bugti, the Chief Minister’s own constituency, 3G and 4G services have been down since June 2024. Last year, the Ministry of Interior unplugged the entire province for the better part of a month, saying there was too much risk of people communicating. For a reporter, this isn’t just an inconvenience, but the difference between a story filed and a story that never leaves the district. Television stays largely in Quetta. Print survives on government advertising, which means the hand that funds the paper is often the hand a story would need to hold to account.
Siraj Reki, a reporter with Vsh News in Surab Town, discovered that his work made his family vulnerable. “My father’s salary was restricted in 2019, and he was questioned by the Education department as reprisal and pressure from a tribal chief over a news report on a school that was turned into an animal shelter.”
Journalists could try to avoid politics and conflict as well. But Sarfraz Shah, who runs a small digital outlet, says in these cases the trouble can start before a story is even written. The president of the Kechi Press Club Farhan Ghani Jamali was attacked by dozens of men in December 2025 over reporting on construction materials in Dhadar, Bolan. Asking a government department for information on a development project it turns out is dangerous as well. He should have just stuck to the press release.
