LEARNING TO COPE

By Abid Hussain and Fahad Naveed

How violence has failed to stop girls from attending school in Panjgur

The burnt window of a private school that came under an arson attack in Panjgur, Balochistan

When 14-year-old Rehana Imam discovered that her school would reopen in August after a two-month break, her joy knew no bounds. Unusual, one may think. Children usually don’t like returning to school after vacations. But Imam’s case is extraordinary for two other reasons: her school is not a fancy facility with beautiful and well-equipped classrooms to lure in children and the break she was having was not due to summer vacations.

She is a 10th grade student at the Ideal Academy, a modest educational institute in the nondescript rock-and-sand area of Chitkan in Panjgur, one of the three districts in Balochistan’s southern Makran division. Her school was shut down because its administrators had received letters accusing them of committing the “crime” of teaching English language to local girls in an “infidel fashion”.

Three ‘missing’ Baloch activists found shot dead

KARACHI: Three ‘missing’ Baloch activists, two of them belonging to the Marri tribe, were found shot dead in a deserted area of Abdullah Goth on Monday, said the Mochko police.

According to the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a Baloch rights group, one of the deceased was Amal Marri who had been taken away with his two brothers in Quetta a couple of years ago.

Balochistan: Unknown caller informs family members of abducted Baloch about another possible mass grave

BALOCHISTAN: An unidentified caller have informed some family members of previously abducted Baloch that their loved one were killed and dumped in a well in Firozabad area of Khuzdar, Balochistan on Sunday.

According to details the immediate family members of Baloch Missing Persons from Khuzdar district have confirmed that an unknown person phoned them and said that they had killed their loved ones and dumped their bodies in a well in Ferozabad area of Khuzdar district.