During his martial law regime, Zia’s military dictatorship reached its peak. He aimed to weaken the Baloch National Insurgency by using the Baloch youth against another oppressed nation. He organized recruitment camps in Makuran to deploy Baloch youth in the Oman army to confront the Zaffari movement, challenging the Sultanate of Oman. He also endeavoured to attract the educated Baloch youth to the Oman army with promises of privileges and luxury, hoping that many would fall, some would be injured, and many would spoil their lives with alcohol. But the Baloch students were alert to Zia’s plot to turn one oppressed nation against another and discredit the Baloch national movement internationally.
Hameed Baloch was born in Kunchati a village of District Kech. He received his primary education in Nudiz, and then matriculated from High School Turbat. After completing his intermediate from Shaal College, he moved to Afghanistan in 1978, where he enrolled in Kabul University’s Department of Engineering.
Political changes occurred in Afghanistan, where Russia backed a pro-Soviet Union communist regime. The leaders of the National Awami Party (NAP), who were arrested during Bhutto’s regime in the case of the Hyderabad Conspiracy and were released by Zia, joined the leftist wing in Afghanistan. The Baloch insurgency started to reshape itself again, and 22-year-old Hameed Baloch, who belonged to an educated family, became politically conscious and active on the platform of BSO.
Former BSO member Khurishad Nigwari, who wrote a book on Hameed Baloch, claims that camps were held in Turbat, Gwadar, and Panjgoor, where Baloch youth were lined up like goats to be recruited in Oman as mercenaries. However, this was in the interests of Britain and Oman to protect their colonial interests in the region by using the Balch youth against Zaffari.
This exploitation was only human trafficking, taking advantage of their poverty and economic backwardness. In the Dark Ages, humans were auctioned off in markets; now, this trade was done under the pretext of defence contracts.
Hameed Baloch attacked officer general Kalpan, who came from Oman to recruit Makurani Baloch, but luckily, he survived, and Hameed Baloch was arrested. Hameed Baloch was handed over to a military court in Makuran, where he was falsely accused of killing a man named Gulam Rasool. BSO and his family protested throughout Balochistan for his release, and BSO leadership tried many plans to rescue him. But they failed. Hameed Baloch was sent to Mach jail, where he was hanged.
Before his martyrdom, Hameed Baloch wrote a letter on the gallows, which was later considered his will. His written will showed that he was immortal. He was sentenced to death on June 10, 1981.
