The killing of a religious scholar and his family in Noshki has laid bare the brutal reality of terrorism in Balochistan, exposing how violence by the banned Balochistan Liberation Army is tearing apart ordinary lives far removed from politics or conflict.
On the night of January 31, armed militants stormed the home of Mufti Amshad Ali, a soft-spoken religious preacher and schoolteacher who had moved to Noshki solely to teach and serve the local community.
The attackers were fully aware that women and children were inside the house. What followed was not a clash or confrontation, but a deliberate act of terror.
Realizing that surrender would mean certain death, Mufti Amshad Ali made a final, desperate attempt to save at least one life. He hid his four-year-old son inside a briefcase, instructing him to remain silent no matter what happened. He then stepped outside, where he was killed.
The attackers went on to murder his wife and three children — Aneeqa, just three years old, and teenage sons Umair, 16, and Talha, 14.
Another daughter survived with injuries and is currently under treatment in Quetta. After wiping out the family, the militants left the house in silence.
The child hidden inside the briefcase remained trapped for nearly two days. When relatives eventually found him alive, he was severely dehydrated and traumatized.
Family members say the child has stopped speaking, raising fears of long-term psychological damage.
The family learned of the massacre a day later through a phone call to their home in Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“There was only one khatib from our area in Noshki,” said the victim’s brother, Mohammad Nasir. “And that was my son.”
Such stories rarely make national headlines. Yet behind every statistic in Balochistan is a home destroyed, a family erased, and a child left carrying the silence of terror, a stark reminder that this violence is not about grievances but about cruelty.
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