Prof Dashtyari no more among us

By Irshad Mastoi

Renowned Baloch scholar, writer and poet Professor Saba Dashtyari was shot dead at Sariyab Road on June 1, 2011 in Quetta. 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. The unidentified assailants managed to flee while his body was shifted to Civil Hospital, Quetta amid tears and cries. After formal post-mortem, doctors handed body over to his relatives.

Professor Dashtyari was a renowned intellectual, writer and poet and a professor at the University of Balochistan in the province’s capital. He was the author of several books on Baloch literature and culture and a scholar in Islamic studies. Over the past few years, he reportedly backed the call for resorting to arms for an independent Balochistan. No one has yet claimed responsibility for Dashtyari’s killing though Baloch groups have accused the Pakistani security forces, notably the Frontier Corps, of carrying out his killing.

Various organizations call on the authorities to ensure a transparent investigation into the incident and to bring all those suspected of involvement in his killing, including any person with command responsibility, to justice. Although the professor had been in poor health for some time, he and his well-wishers had feared that because of his espousal of the nationalist cause his end would be violent, probably at the hands of pro-establishment forces. His worst nightmare came true when Dashtyari was gunned down on Wednesday.

Mourning at the funeral of the 58-year-old professor at Hasht Chowk in Lyari amid slogans against the government and security establishment, his fellows expressed the apprehension that the scourge of killings would not stop anytime soon. Carrying his coffin wrapped in the Balochistan Liberation Army flag, many charged youths were heard chanting slogans for an ‘independent Balochistan’.

Businesses around the Hasht Chowk were shut and the streets filled with hundreds of Prof Dashtiari’s students, admirers, community activists, writers, intellectuals and literary figures.

Born in 1953 in Baghdadi’s Saifi Lane, Prof Saba originally hailed from Dashtiar, a region in Iranian [occupied] Balochistan. He obtained a master’s degree in philosophy and Islamic studies from Karachi University. His love for languages took him to the Iranian Cultural Centre, where he spent four years to learn Persian, and then learnt Arabic through an Egyptian radio programme.

In the 1980s, Mr Dashtyari moved to Quetta after being appointed lecturer at the Balochistan University’s department of Islamic studies. Empowering youngsters of Balochistan with education, his contribution to his hometown of Karachi is the Syed Hashim Reference Library. Spread over an acre in Malir, the library is “the only research centre on Balochi literature, history and culture”.

The library was finally launched in 2003. Professor Dashtyari helped build a strong 8,000-book library –– all on Balochi language, literature and history. When it was started, it was used to entertain eight to nine students. Now more than 200 students, mainly from different parts of Balochistan, are benefiting from it.

A brother of international footballer Ghulam Abbas, Prof Dashtyari was second among the five siblings. During the last three years, he was seen as an activist in the forefront of the movement demanding the release of Baloch “missing persons”. He sat at many hunger strike camps to sympathize with the families of “missing persons”. Sadly on June 1, 2011 he was on his routine walk when some unidentified gunmen shot him dead.