Professor Saba Dashtiyari Assassinated

[sparklingway]

Just another day in Balochistan. Media blackout continues.

Baloch scholar shot dead in Quetta
Suhail Yusuf

QUETTA: Renowned Baloch scholar, writer and poet, Professor Saba Dashtyari was shot dead at Sariab Road on Wednesday evening.

Professor Dashtyari was badly wounded when unidentified assailants opened fire on him. He was rushed to the hospital but could not survive due to severe injuries.

Prof. Dashtyari was a teacher of Islamic Studies at the Balochistan University and frequently shuttled between Karachi and Quetta.

His literary contributions include more than 24 books on Balochi literature, history, poetry and translations. He also established the Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi reference library, Pakistan’s largest library on Balochi literature, in Malir area of Karachi.

The library houses more than 150,000 books in various languages on Balochi literature, culture and civilisation. Furthermore, he also compiled an index and bibliography of Balochi literature published in the past 50 years.

Meanwhile, the University of Balochistan will remain closed on Thursday to mourn Professor Dashtyari’s death.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/06/01/baloch-scholar-shot-dead-in-quetta.html

Professor Saba Dashtiyari Assassinated

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: A prominent Baloch linguist, writer and a professor of the University of Balochistan, Dr. Saba Dashtiyari has been assassinated in Balochistan’s capital Quetta, sources confirmed.

According to the details Professor Dashtiyari was gunned down by unidentified persons on Wednesday night by unidentified attackers while he was on his way home. The professor instantly succumbed to the injuries after receiving bullets in his head and and neck.

Baloch nationalists have blamed the death squads of the country’s military for target killing of the top scholar. However, no responsibility has been claimed by any group yet.

Professors assocociation at the University of Balochistan and the Baloch Students Organization (BSO-Azad) have strongly condemned the killing. The University of Balochistan has announced a three-day mourning over the killing.

Saba held a Masters Degree in Philosophy and Islamic Studies and taught theology. He was fluent in many langauges including English, Persian and Arabic.

Born in 1953 in Layari district of Karachi in a lower-middle class family, Mr. Dashtiyari taught Islamic studies at the University of Balochistan and was respected as a top Balochi language writer and intellectual whose literary works appeared in leading journals and magazines. He had authored several books and laid the foundation of a premier Balochi language academy in Karachi.

“He devoted his whole life for the promotion of Balochi language and culture,” said an intimate friend of the professor while reacting to the incident.

For the last couple of years, he had become a staunch backer of the Baloch armed resistance for national liberation. He had participated in plenty of protest rallies and spoken openly in support of an independent Balochistan.

“He was a liberal and open-minded person,” said Ubaid Baloch, a student of the University of Balochistan, “he was one of the few professors who was willing to sit with the students at the cafeteria to discuss politics and religion with an open mind. We have lost a very liberal Baloch.”

 

[Kompromat]

what a sad day.

 

[Solomon2]

No hope of capturing and successfully prosecuting the assailants, is there?

 

[sparklingway]

Obituary: The Martyred Professor

By Malik Siraj Akbar

I do no know any young Baloch of my generation who was not keen to meet Professor Saba Dashtiyari during his early school days. As a school student in Panjgur, my hometown, I first heard about Saba, who was brutally shot dead on Wednesday night in Quetta where he was among the very few brave men who would still take a walk on Sariab Road in spite of serious law and order problems confronting the provincial capital.

As young kids, we had heard charming stories about a Baloch professor who was an atheist but, ironically, taught theology and Islamic studies at the University of Balochistan. Another thing that fascinated us about him was the narrative that he spent most of his salary on the promotion of Balochi language academies and preparation of Balochi text books.

I was in my early teens when I met Professor Saba at Panjgur’s Izat Academy, a local organization that used to publish a Balochi language liberal magazine Chirag under the editorship of Karim Azad. The magazine was eventually shut down because of a chronic financial crunch.

My interactions with Saba increased in Quetta at the University of Balochistan. There were always two things one could not overlook while entering the University: the heavy presence of the Frontier Corps (FC) and Saba Dashtiyaris table surrounded by students. Saba ran kind of a (liberal) university within the (strictly controlled) university. He was an easily approachable professor who would sit outside the canteen to share ideas with students. While getting into our classrooms, I would often see two to three students sitting with the Professor at around 10:00 am. Within two hours, when I’d walk to the same place, the circle of the students by that time would have expanded to 20 to 30.

If you walked individually, he’d excuse the group of students surrounding him and call at you “Biya day bacha” (Come over, boy) but if you walked in a group of students, “he’d pluralize it “biye e day bachikan” (Come over, boys).

The group of students that surrounded the Professor often comprised of progressive and liberals. One would barely make sense of the composition without squinting at the books they carried in their hands. These students held books written by free thinkers like Bertrand Russell and others held some Russian fictions by Leo Tolstoy or Maxim Gorky. There were the ones who’d be holding Syed Sibth-e-Hassan’s work or that of Dr. Mubarak Ali.

After seeing these books, one would sit down to listen to the contents of the discussion taking place on this exceptional circle. Discussions headed by Saba were far more liberal and enlightening than what we could learn from our classrooms. The participants of the discussions would talk on a variety of topics ranging from politics, religion, revolutions, nationalism to taboos topics like sex and homosexuality. Students often wondered why rest of the professors inside the university was not as liberal and easily approachable like Saba.

The great Professors’ humbleness dated back to his family background. He came from a low-income family of Karachi which had actually migrated from Dasthiyar area of Iranian Balochistan. Thus, he alluded to his ancestral town throughout his life with his last name “Dashtiyari” (which meant someone who came from Dashtiyar).

Saba was born in 1953 Karachi and attained his basic education in the slums. He obtained a Masters degree in Philosophy and Islamic Studies from the University of Balochistan. His love for different languages took him to the Iranian cultural center where he spent four years to learn Persian and then learned Arabic from the Egyptian Radio.

Very few people took the responsibility of promoting Balochi language and cultural with such a great personal and professional commitment as Professor Dashtiyari did.

Although, he silently remained involved in teaching and promoting the language for around two years, he subsequently realized he was not sufficiently contributing to the Baloch movement. Thus, he walked outside the University and joined as an activist. During the last three years, Saba was seen in the forefront of the movement demanding the release of thousands of missing Baloch persons. He used to sit at different hunger strike camps to sympathize with the families of the missing persons and address various seminars.

In one such seminar, a female journalist interrupted Saba’s speech and said she would not let him speak on Balochistan. The lady’s interruption did not discourage or humiliate the Baloch professor who said in front of an august gathering that he would exercise his right to freedom of expression. Freedom in its all forms meant a life to him.

Two days before coming to the US, Saba and I spent around five hours together in Quetta. After he transported two boxes of books to a Karachi-based academy, we sat along with some other friends in Quetta’s Pishin Stop at a fast food restaurant to discus the situation in Balochistan.

I inquired about the remarkable transformation in his personality and the causes that forced him to become an activist. In response, he sounded very frustrated with the state of affairs in Balochistan and did not mince words.

“Pakistan is a colonial state,” he said, “It is trying to eliminate the Baloch people and their culture. As professionals, we have to understand it’s our responsibility to come forward to assure our people that they are not alone.”

He believed that the Balochs should establish parallel educational institutions to counter the official propaganda and efforts to assimilate the Baloch into an alien culture. He was perturbed over the lack of official encouragement for the Balochi language and emphasized on the need for societal efforts to preserve the Baloch identity.

A practical man, he had established a prestigious Balochi reference center which was named after Syed Zahoor Shah Hashimi, another respected Balcoh intellectual.

He never married; spent whole his life for the promotion of Balochi language and culture.

Before I bid farewell to him outside his residence at the University Colony, Saba referred to my upcoming trip to the US and instructed: “Day Bacha mara odha washnaam bekan” (Oh boy, do make us proud there — in the US).

It is utterly futile to demand an inquiry into Saba’s murder as an inquiry is not what is going to help. All that we need to mourn is the great loss of an extraordinary educator of Balochistan. This is no longer a secrete how the government is target killing Baloch professors, writers, journalists, lawyers, human rights activists and political leaders. This is a period of unity among the people of Balochistan and the Balochs all over the world.

Every day, I receive a number of phone calls, emails and Facebook messages advising or ‘ordering’ me to “be careful” over what I write. What does it actually mean to be careful? There is no way carefulness can bring an end to this traumatic cycle of systematic elimination of Baloch scholars. It is worse not to speak up against this barbaric cycle of violence. The killing of enlightened writers and professors like Saba is simply a clear message to all the liberals that we should either give up or get prepared to be killed.

I know getting killed is a heavy price for anyone of us to pay for our work but to live under oppression and injustice is like getting killed every other day. There is no justice without struggle. We all need to stand up for truth and refuse to succumb to this challenge.

It’s no cliché: Saba was unique and irreplaceable. You will not find a man who’ll spend his salary to impart cultural awareness and secular education at a time when the State of Pakistan is spending billions of rupees with the assistance of its Saudi cronies to radicalize the Baloch society by constructing more and more religious schools to counter the liberal nationalist movement.

 

[pak-marine]

very very , 2 journalists dead in a row .. whats going in here ?

 

[unicorn]

What amuses me is the timing of these incidents.People before judging anything should take this into account as well.

 

[T-Faz]

Another intellectual silenced by the military establishment for his views, rather than addressing the core issues which turn Pakistani's against the state, these people think that by silencing the vocal minority, they can continue to keep a hold on this nation.

Of course there will be people now who will blame it on foreign hand and whoever that comes to mind without any proof.

These policies of assassinating or killing people has gone too far and begs the old question once again, whose side is this establishment on?

They are not on Pakistan's side, that is for sure.

 

[Bratva]

Another intellectual silenced by the military establishment for his views, rather than addressing the core issues which turn Pakistani's against the state, these people think that by silencing the vocal minority, they can continue to keep a hold on this nation.

Of course there will be people now who will blame it on foreign hand and whoever that comes to mind without any proof.

These policies of assassinating or killing people has gone too far and begs the old question once again, whose side is this establishment on?

They are not on Pakistan's side, that is for sure.

Were you a eye witness? If no, then your post is Given "Rants+". Your anti-army emotions tends to carry you away, which clouds your judgment and your every other post just end up in bashing army making your posts look like rehtoric.

 

[Solomon2]

Were you a eye witness? If no, then your post is Given "Rants+".

It doesn't matter; the P.A. can't be presumed innocent any more. They've been caught with their hands in the cookie jar of terror too often. If they are to hope to regain trust they have to be willing to yield real power to civilians, not just mere appearance. If they hold back, they risk revolt from both the populace and from within their own ranks.

 

[T-Faz]

Were you a eye witness? If no, then your post is Given "Rants+". Your anti-army emotions tends to carry you away, which clouds your judgment and your every other post just end up in bashing army making your posts look like rehtoric.

It's not a rant, its reality.

I am Pro-Army, I support them over anyone any day, I even support Mush to this day and hope he becomes the President again.

But I have real grievences with them and their performance, not the ordinary soldier or officer but its leadership.

They have let us down, this nation deserves better, they need to be better.

Criticism is something that I hope leads to reformation.

 

[Kinetic]

RIP. Such killing of intellectuals is not a good signal for the society and state.

 

[Roybot]

This is messed up. RIP Sir.

 

[foxbat]

The endless spiral of rule of the gun continues. WOuld have sounded like the Wild Wild West, if only the gun wasnt being wielded by someone wearing the uniform.

 

[lkozhi]

yep who ever gets killed now isi gets blame. Lot of people will use this to settle scores.

 

[Veeru]

RIP to the innocent baluch.