On the evening of June 1, 2011, Professor Saba Dashtyari walked home along Sariab Road in Quetta after teaching a Balochi language class at the University of Balochistan. His student, Sakim Sukun, was beside him. Unidentified gunmen opened fire. Dashtyari was rushed to hospital. He did not survive. He was 57 years old. He left behind 24 documented books in Balochi, poetry collections, short story volumes, linguistic histories, literary indexes, a 50-year bibliography of Balochi literature he had compiled by hand across decades, and a library in Malir, Karachi, housing 16,000 volumes on Balochi civilisation, which he had built from his own salary and six years of travel across four continents asking for donations. None of his books are indexed in the Pakistan Academy of Letters catalogue. None appear on Rekhta, the largest online archive of South Asian literary work. Balochi is not in the national curriculum. Hours after his death, a previously unknown group calling itself Ansarul Islam telephoned the Quetta Press Club to claim responsibility. The hundreds who marched to Mewashah graveyard for his burial rejected the claim unanimously. No prosecution followed. The government of President Asif Ali Zardari made no public statement naming a responsible party. The University of Balochistan closed for one day of mourning and reopened.
