✍️ By Masood Ahmad Khan Nasir
Balochistan — a land rich in natural resources, where regions like Saindak daily send tons of copper and gold into the global market. Yet, it is the same Balochistan where the people living above this wealth are crushed under the weight of poverty, hunger, and hopelessness.
Recently, during a visit to Balochistan, renowned journalist Imran Riaz Khan shared a heart-wrenching moment — a young Baloch boy, wearing nothing but a torn rubber slipper on his foot. This wasn’t in some remote, abandoned land. This was near Saindak, where 15 kilograms of pure gold are extracted every single day and shipped to China.
Isn’t it a tragedy that the children of this golden land can’t even afford a pair of shoes?
Isn’t it shameful that the real owners of Balochistan are deprived of clean water, education, healthcare, and basic dignity?
Isn’t it time we asked: Why are the people living on mountains of gold, living lives poorer than dirt?
The Real Owners of Balochistan — Stripped of Their Rights
The Baloch farmers, shepherds, laborers, and children are the true custodians of this land. For centuries, they’ve preserved and protected it. Many have laid down their lives in defense of Pakistan. Yet today, their homes lie abandoned, schools are shuttered, hospitals are empty, and their futures are lost in the dark.
Saindak and Reko Diq — Whose Wealth, Whose Benefit?
Projects like Saindak and Reko Diq extract billions in mineral wealth, yet the profits flow out to foreign powers and central bureaucracy. If you walk through these gold-rich zones, you’ll find villages where children drink dirty water, roam barefoot, and grow up without ever entering a classroom.
Every day, China takes away 15 kilograms of pure gold from Saindak. Yet, the local population lives as if cursed, despite sitting atop unimaginable wealth.
Imran Riaz Khan’s Footage — A Mirror to Our Faces
The sight of that poor child’s broken slipper isn’t just an emotional image — it is a direct indictment of our failed state policies, our unjust systems, and our collective indifference.
As a nation, when will we wake up?
Do we even need an external enemy, when we force our own children to walk barefoot on golden soil?
What Can Be Done?
1. The government must ensure that a major share of mineral revenues is spent on the welfare of the local population.
2. The media must consistently cover the realities of Balochistan, not just during occasional visits.
3. Citizens and civil society should launch aid drives for basic needs like shoes, clean water, schools, and health facilities in the region.
4. Our national curriculum should include the history, culture, and struggles of Balochistan to raise awareness among future generations.
Those Baloch children who today wander barefoot around gold mines in broken slippers — if one day, resentment grows in their hearts, then we will all be responsible.
Let us enrich this golden land not just with minerals, but with human dignity, justice, and compassion.