Friday, April 30, 2010
By all accounts Professor Dr Nazima Talib Mehdi was a popular member
of the faculty at Balochistan University where she taught in the Mass
Communication Department. She was also popular with her students who
mourn her murder. We have lost not only a valuable and respected
teacher but a poet and short-story writer as well. She died after
being shot at least twice in the head as she travelled in a rickshaw
out of the university. She had served continuously at BU since 1987
and had migrated to Quetta from Karachi. Her only crime, it would
seem, was that she was not an ethnic Baloch. Her murder was claimed by
a man alleged to be a spokesman for the Baloch Liberation Army who
spoke to reporters saying that it was in revenge for the killing of
two Baloch women in Quetta and Pasni and the torture of women
political workers in Mand and Tump.
Her death is the latest in a long line of murders, some of which have
been claimed by militant outfits in Balochistan and others of which
have not. It is impossible to independently verify who actually
carried out the killings and in the dark world of the conflict in
Balochistan there remains the possibility of fingers other than those
of a Baloch militant on the trigger. Whoever murdered Nazima Talib
Mehdi deprived the world of a brave women – she would undoubtedly have
been aware of the risks that she ran in doing her job – and an
academic who had given selflessly for the last 23 years for the
betterment of the young of the province of Balochistan. Presumably
this is an irony lost on her killers. She joins the list of murdered
academics and educationists that extends seemingly by the day in
Balochistan. An attrition rate amongst academia in Balochistan at this
rate is unsustainable and the government, both provincial and federal,
needs to protect its intellectual assets better than it does
currently.
Article Source:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=236724
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