His son is not the only one to have disappeared. Abductions have been on the rise in past months.

“The conflict in Balochistan today is about our national resources, land, recognition of our right to self-determination and our freedom which the military rulers in Islamabad tends to colour differently to stigmatise the Balochi people,” says Haleem Baloch, a member of the Baloch Students Federation.

The conflict has been brewing ever since the partition between India and Pakistan. Balochistan, the largest but one of the poorest provinces of Pakistan, has a landmass of 42 per cent of the country’s. Nearly 45 percent of its people live below poverty line, although the province is replete with energy and natural resources. According to the ISN Security Watch, Balochistan’s gas reserves in the province account for 1.4 billion U.S. dollars annually in revenues but gets only 116 million dollars in royalties.

In the guise of the U.S.-led ‘war on terror’ that pushes Pakistan to clamp down on insurgencies in search of al-Qaeda, the conflict has become gruesome -- the chief of the Jamhoori Watan party, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, has declared that the Pakistan army has been “committing genocide upon its people” .

Violence has escalated with the blowing up of gas reserves in the Baloch areas. The area under Bugti accounts for around 40 percent of total gas reserves.