Author: Miran Mazar (Chief Editor
The Balochistan Post)
Sajid Hussain was well known in the
Baloch society since he began his journalistic career, particularly to anyone
who followed the politics of Balochistan.
He was 39, when his dead body was
found from a river by Police in Uppsala, Sweden in April 2020. He went missing
from the Swedish town on 2nd March 2020, where he had moved to a student
accommodation because of his studies.
Sajid Hussain was born in Mand on
16 January 1981 and grew up in the nearby locality of Nizarabad. However, he
received majority of his schooling in Karachi.
His early education was from Nasra
Primary School and he later also studied in Bahria College Karachi.
In 2002 Sajid joined Baloch
Students Organisation and remained its member for at least 4 years. In 2004 he
became a member of BSO’s central committee, the highest decision-making body of
the organisation.
Sajid earned his bachelor’s degree
from Karachi University in 2006/07 with majors in Economics. He received his
master’s degree with a first-class grade from University of Balochistan in
2012.
He left political activism after he
began his career as a journalist in 2007 and achieved great success in the
field. He worked for Pakistan’s mainstream media outlets including Daily Times
and The News.
Sajid’s work as a journalist
covered an array of issues from Balochistan. He wrote extensively on human
rights violations including Baloch missing persons issue. His article in The
News International about a drug lord from Makkuran made waves in Pakistan and
the region. However, at some point his brilliant journalistic work also irked
Pakistan’s powerful secretive agencies.
In 2009 Sajid’s uncle and renowned
Baloch leader Ghulam Mohammad Baloch was killed. The Baloch leader’s
organisation BNM and other human rights group alleged Pakistani authorities as
culprit of Mr. Baloch’s murder.
In 2012 Sajid moved to Quetta,
capital of Balochistan, and was assisting international news agency Reuters for
a story when Pakistani authorities broke into his house and stole his laptop
and other documents.
Soon after Sajid moved to UAE and
later to other countries including Oman and Uganda before eventually reaching
Sweden in 2017. In 2019 he was granted asylum in the European country.
Throughout this period, he
continued his journalistic and literary work. One of his main contribution to
the field was launching Balochistan Times, an online magazine covering
Balochistan. He was the Editor in Chief of the magazine.
While in Sweden, he also worked
with linguists Carina Jahani and Taj Baloch on an online Balochi-English
dictionary and the “first ever standardized” book of Balochi grammar.
Recently, he had got admission in a
master’s degree in the Uppsala university’s Balochi department in Sweden. He
also planned to earn a PhD in the language.
On 28th March 2020 the editorial
board of the Balochistan Times announced the disappearance of Sajid, who had
been missing from Uppsala, Sweden since 2nd March 2020. A formal case was filed
with the Swedish police on 3rd March 2020.
Sajid Hussain was added on a
missing persons database on 5th March.
Various international organisations
including Committee to Protect Journalists urged Swedish authorities to ensure
Sajid Hussain’s safety and locate the missing journalist.
However, today on 1st May 2020
Balochistan Times announced the sad news of recovery of Sajid Hussain’s dead
body by Swedish police from a river near Uppsala.
Sajid is survived by his wife,
Shehnaz Sajid, and young children Taheer and Shahan, who were planning to join
him in Sweden later this year.
Sajid once, while talking about
Balochistan’s missing persons issue, had said “the dead do not haunt me as much
as the missing do. To tell the truth, I feel relieved when I hear about the
discovery of a missing person’s body.” However, recovery of Sajid’s dead body
has saddened all his colleagues and friends, who were wishing for safe return
of the intelligent Baloch journalist.
Sajid’s death is a huge loss and it
will take years to fill the vacuum created with his sad departure.
